Staff Backend Developer

TouchTunes • Schaumburg, IL

5d • Hybrid

About The Position

Your mission in the Backend team:At TouchTunes, your work matters. We are looking for a Staff Backend Engineer to help design, scale, and harden our Ad Platform. This system powers real-time ad decisioning, partner integrations, and revenue-critical analytics across a distributed backend architecture. We are seeking a strong backend engineer first, with deep experience in Java or Go, distributed systems, and event-driven architectures. Ad-tech experience is a strong plus but not required. This is a senior individual contributor role with architectural influence and ownership over platform reliability, performance, and long-term evolution.

Requirements

• 8+ years backend engineering experience
• Deep expertise in Java and/or Go
• Strong distributed systems fundamentals
• Experience with Kafka or comparable streaming systems
• Production experience running services in Kubernetes
• Strong familiarity with the AWS ecosystem
• Experience building high-throughput, low-latency services
• Demonstrated ownership of reliability and production excellence

Nice To Haves

• Experience in ad-tech or programmatic advertising ecosystems
• Real-time bidding or yield optimization systems
• Experience serving video or VAST-based ads
• DOOH / CTV environments
• Familiarity with VAST, OpenRTB, RTB flows, or DOOH/CTV environments is a plus

Responsibilities

• Design and build low-latency services in Java and/or Go
• Architect real-time decisioning systems operating under strict timing constraints
• Implement rule-based and algorithmic offer evaluation and partner prioritization
• Design fallback strategies for degraded or slow external partners
• Build resilient systems that protect revenue during “bad day” scenarios
• Design and operate a Kafka-based streaming pipeline
• Model and track high-volume events (impressions, fills, errors, playback, revenue signals)
• Enable auditability from request through playback
• Support analytics, yield analysis, and finance reconciliation workflows
• Design and operate services on AWS
• Leverage core AWS services (e.g., EKS, S3, EC2, managed streaming/datastores)
• Deploy and operate workloads in Kubernetes
• Design scalable, fault-tolerant microservices
• Design for high availability and predictable performance under load
• Implement caching strategies (in-memory, distributed, and edge-aware where applicable)
• Instrument services using OpenTelemetry
• Build meaningful metrics, tracing, and logging pipelines
• Monitor latency, partner performance, fill rate, and error patterns
• Drive reliability improvements through measurable SLOs and performance tuning
• Integrate with external programmatic partners and SSPs
• Manage timeouts, rate limits, and SLA variability
• Contribute to building a scalable, vendor-agnostic decisioning platform
• Operate as a Staff-level IC influencing architecture and engineering standards
• Lead complex design discussions
• Mentor engineers and elevate backend reliability practices
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Data, and Revenue stakeholders

Benefits

• Hybrid Work Environment: Hybrid schedule with 50% work-from-home and in-office time, with the ability to work anywhere in the world for up to 2 months per year.
• Financial Wellness: Annual performance bonus, long-term company bonus, 401k matching, life insurance.
• Comprehensive Benefits: Competitive health insurance and disability coverage, a Lifestyle Spending Account, access to telemedicine, and an unlimited sick days policy.
• Professional Development: Continuous hands-on learning with access to e-learning platform, tuition reimbursement, and peer mentorship.
• Accessibility: An inclusive workplace designed to accommodate people with disabilities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed