Director, Engineering(Adserving)

GroupM; London; Hybrid; GBP 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading media company seeks an Engineering Director for Ad Serving to lead a dynamic team focused on optimizing ad delivery. This pivotal role encompasses technical leadership, product strategy, and operational management in a high-performance environment. Ideal candidates possess deep AdTech expertise, particularly in software engineering frameworks and modern operational practices, to drive innovation and growth.

Benefits

Competitive medical insurance

Group retirement plans

Significant paid time off

Employee mental health awareness days

Preferential partner discounts

Qualifications

• Experience in software engineering leadership and ad operations roles.
• Strong preference for functional programming experience, ideally with Clojure.
• Experience shaping agile and DevSecOps practices.

Responsibilities

• Oversee all stages of development and operations in ad serving.
• Lead engineering team and manage ad server product strategy.
• Architect scalable and reliable solutions for ad serving.

Skills

AdTech leadership

Operational management

Clojure

DevSecOps

CI/CD

Automation

Site Reliability Engineering

Tools

AWS

GCP

k8s

Snowflake

Job description

About WPP Media

WPP is the creative transformation company. We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, planet, clients and communities. For more information, visit wpp.com.

WPP Media is WPPu2019s global media collective. In a world where media is everywhere and in everything, we bring the best platform, people, and partners together to create limitless opportunities for growth. For more information, visit wppmedia.com

About Choreograph : A Leading WPP Media Brand

Choreograph is WPPu2019s global data products and technology company. Weu2019re on a mission to transform marketing by building the fastest, most connected data platform that bridges marketing strategy to scaled activation.

We work with agencies and clients to transform the value of data by bringing together technology, data and analytics capabilities. We deliver this through the Open Media Studio, an AI-enabled media and data platform for the next era of advertising.

Weu2019re endlessly curious. Our team of thinkers, builders, creators and problem solvers are over 1,000 strong, across 20 markets around the world.

Role Summary and Impact

Our team consists of 100+ engineers, designers, data, and product people, working in small inter-disciplinary teams closely with creative agencies, media agencies, and with our customers, to develop and scale our DCO platform, a leading digital advertising optimization suite that delivers amazing outcomes for brands and audiences.

As our Engineering Director for Ad Serving, you will work side by side with Product, Support, Services, platform partners, and your Ad Serving engineering team to design, build, deliver and operate our ad server. The role is a hands-on player/coach role, involving people leadership, operational management, hand-on development and technical duties, including operational management of the tech behind our global, 24x7 ad serving operation. The role has line management responsibilities of a mix of permanent and interim engineers.

As a leader in our Optimization Engineering practice, youu2019ll work with Product, Operations, other Engineering Directors and principal engineers, and our VP Software Engineering, to shape our practice. Additionally youu2019ll coach and support junior engineers, contribute to the evolution of the teamu2019s principles, practices, and tools, play a role in shaping our wider platform architecture, and play a significant role in shaping our culture.

Our platforms are built with Clojure, employ a polylith architecture, are deployed using CI/CD, heavily exploit automation, and run on AWS, GCP, k8s, Snowflake and more. We serve 9 petabytes and 77 billion objects annually, which amounts to 20 billion ad impressions across the globe. Youu2019ll play a leading role in significantly scaling this further.

Responsibilities

Lead our Adserving engineering team, overseeing and participating in all stages of development, delivery and operations, together with Product, Support, and Operations.

Manage our ad server as a product, devising and maintain our strategy, develop and drive execution of our roadmap, and industrialise our ad serving operation.

Architect solutions that are simple, scalable, reliable, secure, maintainable, and make a measurable impact.

Develop and deliver new features, maintain our product, and drive growth to hit team KPIs. As a part of this, undertake hands-on development and engineering tasks with your team and other teams, to deliver production solutions.

Employ and champion modern pragmatic engineering principles, practices, and tooling, including TDD/BDD/ATDD, XP, QA Engineering, Trunk Based Development, Continuous Delivery, automation, DevSecOps, and Site Reliability Engineering.

Take a leadership role in driving ongoing improvements to our engineering principles, practices, and tooling. Provide support & mentorship to junior engineers, prioritising continuous learning and development.

Develop and maintain a contemporary understanding of AdTech developments, industry standards, partner and competitor platform developments, and commercial models, from an engineering perspective. Combined these insights with technical expertise to contribute to our strategy and plans, influence product design, shape our roadmap, and help plan delivery.

Skills and Experience

At WPP Media , we believe in the power of our culture and our people. Itu2019s what elevates us to deliver exceptional experiences for both our clients and each other. In this role it will be critical to embrace WPP & WPP Media u2019s shared core value s:

• Be Extraordinary by Leading Collectively to Inspire transformational Creativity.
• Create an Open environment by Balancing People and Client Experiences by Cultivating Trust .
• Lead Optimistically by Championing Growth and Development to Mobilize the Enterprise .

u00A0

AdTech leadership experience across both software engineering leadership, and adserving / ad operations leadership roles. Deep experience in maturing operational teams, delivery management, embedding DevSecOps principles and practices in operational teams, and leading permanent and interim teams across multiple geographies supporting a 24x7 service.

u2022 Proven experience designing simple / scalable / reliable architectures, building, and operating concurrent, distributed systems, solving difficult and novel problems, and leading engineering and operational teams working in this space.

u2022 Proven experience and a passion for developing and operating concurrent distributed systems leveraging k8s, and AWS or GCP. Strong preference for functional programming experience, ideally with Clojure. ClojureScript, JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Java, Python, and Terraform experience highly desirable.

u2022 Proven experience contributing to product strategy development with Product Management teams. Experience in SaaS product engineering and operations highly desirable.

u2022 Proven experience in modern software development and testing practices and implementing these in teams, with a willingness to share, partner and coach engineers, product people, and operations through pragmatic and effective development and delivery practices. Experience in employing TDD, BDD or ATDD highly desirable.

u2022 Proven experience shaping and evolving the principles, practices, and tooling supporting agile, testing/QA, DevSecOps, automation, SRE. Experience in Trunk Based Development, XP, & implementing CI/CD highly desirable.

u2022 A focus on continuous learning and improving, both technically and professionally, in your industry, for you and your teams.

u2022 Demonstrated resilience, with experience working in ambiguous situations.

u2022 Strong English, excellent influencing and communication skills, and excellent documentation skills.

Life at WPP Media & Benefits

Our passion for shaping the next era of media includes investing in our employees to help them do their best work, and weu2019re just as committed to employee growth as we are to responsible media investment. WPP Media employees can tap into the global WPP Media & WPP networks to pursue their passions, grow their networks, and learn at the cutting edge of marketing and advertising. We have a variety of employee resource groups and host frequent in-office events showcasing team wins, sharing thought leadership, and celebrating holidays and milestone events. Our benefits include competitive medical, group retirement plans, vision, and dental insurance, significant paid time off, preferential partner discounts, and employee mental health awareness days. u00A0 u00A0

WPP Media is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.

We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why weu2019ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.

Please read our Privacy Notice ( https://www.wppmedia.com/pages/privacy-policy ) for more information on how we process the information you provide.

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While we appreciate all applications received, only those candidates selected for an interview will be contacted. u00A0

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