Senior Software Engineer — Real-Time Ad Serving

zetaglobal; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Excellent medical, dental, and vision

Job summary

Zeta Global is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to design, implement, and own the real-time ad serving logic powering programmatic advertising at scale. You will predominantly work in Lua, with C++ on the server framework, optimizing ad selection, targeting, and delivery metrics.

This hands-on role runs in production with billions of daily transactions and requires strong backend expertise. You will collaborate with Product to ship features affecting advertisers and publishers, and you should

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience in backend development.
• Experience with Lua or willingness to learn (we provide time and the right environment).
• Experience in online advertising / ad tech (RTB, programmatic, DSP/SSP) is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Develop and optimize business logic in Lua for ad selection, targeting, frequency capping, and budget pacing.
• Design, build, and maintain real-time services processing 200K+ requests per second with strict latency requirements.
• Work closely with Product to deliver features that meet advertiser and publisher needs.
• Ensure code quality through code reviews, automated testing, and continuous integration.
• Participate in architecture discussions and influence the technical roadmap.
• Participate in on-call rotation to support production systems.

Skills

Lua

C++

Distributed systems

OpenRTB

AWS

Tools

MongoDB

OpenRTB protocol

AWS

Job description

WHO WE ARE

Zeta Global (NYSE: ZETA) is the AI-Powered Marketing Cloud that leverages advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and trillions of consumer signals to make it easier for marketers to acquire, grow, and retain customers more efficiently. Through the Zeta Marketing Platform (ZMP), our vision is to make sophisticated marketing simple by unifying identity, intelligence, and omnichannel activation into a single platform – powered by one of the industry’s largest proprietary databases and AI. Our enterprise customers across multiple verticals are empowered to personalize experiences with consumers at an individual level across every channel, delivering better results for marketing programs. Zeta was founded in 2007 by David A. Steinberg and John Sculley and is headquartered in New York City with offices around the world. To learn more, go to www.zetaglobal.com.

THE ROLE

As a Senior Software Engineer on the LiveIntent Real-Time Ad Serving team, you will design, develop, and own the business logic that powers programmatic advertising at scale — ad selection, targeting, frequency capping, budget pacing, and delivery optimization.

The real-time platform is built on C++ and Lua: C++ provides the high-performance server framework, while Lua implements the business logic layer. You will work primarily in Lua, developing and evolving the features that directly serve LiveIntent's product — ensuring advertisers get the best outcomes and publishers maximize their revenue. While we're open to candidates with experience in any backend language, a willingness to work with Lua is essential — we provide time and the right environment to get up to speed.

You will collaborate closely with Product, working on features that directly impact LiveIntent's customers — from ad targeting and delivery to reporting and optimization. This is a hands-on engineering role where your code runs in production handling billions of daily transactions.

This is a hybrid/remote role based out of our Berlin, Germany or Prague, Czech Republic offices.

ESSENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

• Develop and optimize business logic in Lua for ad selection, targeting, frequency capping, and budget pacing
• Design, build, and maintain real-time services processing 200K+ requests per second with strict latency requirements
• Work closely with Product to deliver features that meet advertiser and publisher needs
• Ensure code quality through code reviews, automated testing, and continuous integration
• Participate in architecture discussions and influence the technical roadmap
• Participate in on-call rotation to support production systems

DESIRED CHARACTERISTICS

• 5+ years of software engineering experience in backend development
• Deep understanding of computer science fundamentals: data structures, algorithms, performance optimization
• Experience building and operating distributed systems in production
• Exposure to the full software development lifecycle — from design to production and monitoring
• Strong commitment to code quality, automated testing, and documentation
• Proficient English (the interview process will be held in English)
• Experience with Lua or willingness to learn (we provide time and the right environment)
• Experience in online advertising / ad tech (RTB, programmatic, DSP/SSP) is a plus
• Proficiency in a systems-level language (C++, Go, Rust, or Java) is a plus
• Experience with MongoDB and real-time data processing is a plus
• Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS) at scale is a plus
• Experience with AI-assisted development tools and agentic workflows is a plus
• Experience with OpenRTB protocol and ad exchange integrations is a plus

BENEFITS & PERKS

• Excellent medical, dental, and vision coverage

PEOPLE & CULTURE AT ZETA

Zeta considers applicants for employment without regard to, and does not discriminate on the basis of an individual’s sex, race, color, religion, age, disability, status as a veteran, or national or ethnic origin; nor does Zeta discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.

We’re committed to building a workplace culture of trust and belonging, so everyone feels invited to bring their whole selves to work. We provide a forum for employees to celebrate, support and advocate for one another. Learn more about our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion here: https://zetaglobal.com/blog/a-look-into-zetas-ergs/

ZETA IN THE NEWS!

https://zetaglobal.com/press/?cat=press-releases

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