Principal Engineer Architect [T500-19700]

ANSR; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 2,000,000 - 3,000,000; Full time

Job summary

A major retail technology company in Bengaluru seeks a Principal Engineer to lead the design and development of distributed systems for retail media. This role involves a focus on performance optimization and mentoring engineering teams, requiring extensive expertise in AdTech/Retail Media, low-latency systems, and strong leadership skills. The ideal candidate will drive technology vision and collaborate with cross-functional teams to enhance product offerings.

Qualifications

• 12+ years' experience in building large-scale platforms.
• Expertise in low-latency systems and real-time auctions.
• Strong leadership and mentoring capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Design and build distributed systems for retail media.
• Lead self-service advertising platform development.
• Optimize performance for latency-critical systems.

Skills

AdTech/Retail Media experience

Distributed systems design

Leadership and mentoring

Programming proficiency (Java, Go, Python)

Performance engineering

Tools

Cloud-native technologies

Microservices

NoSQL databases

Job description

As a leading food and drug retailer in the United States, Albertsons Companies, Inc. operates over 2,200 stores across 35 states and the District of Columbia. Our well-known banners across the United States, including Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco and others, serve more than 36 million U.S customers each week.

We build and shape technology solutions that solve customers’ problems every day, making things easier for them when they shop with us online or in a store. We have made bold, strategic moves to migrate and modernize our core foundational capabilities, positioning ourselves as the first fully cloud-based grocery tech company in the industry.

Our success is built on a one-team approach, driven by the desire to understand and enhance the customer experience. By constantly pushing the boundaries of retail, we are transforming shopping into an experience that is easy, efficient, fun and engaging.

About Albertsons Companies India:

At Albertsons Companies India, we are cultivating a space where ideas flourish and careers thrive. Our workplace in India is a vital extension of the Albertsons Companies Inc. workforce and important to the next phase in the company’s technology journey to support millions of customers’ lives every day.

At Albertsons Companies India associates collaborate directly with international teams, enhancing decision-making processes and organizational agility through exciting and pivotal projects. Your work will make history and help millions of lives each day come together around the joys of food and inspire their well-being.

Position Title

Position Title: Principal Engineer

Job Description

Albertsons Media Collective is the retail media network arm of Albertsons Companies. It connects retail brands with shoppers by delivering personalized, digitally native, and shopper-centric advertising experiences across both in-store and online channel. The platform leverages Albertsons’ extensive first-party data and technology to help brands target and engage loyal shoppers and loyalty program members.

Albertsons Media Collective offers omnichannel advertising solutions, including native display, sponsored products, email, search, and app placements, as well as innovative offerings like Collective TV—a solution for planning, executing, and measuring video ad campaigns across streaming, digital video, and soon linear TV. The network is designed to drive sales, accelerate growth for partner brands, and deliver measurable results through data-driven insights and closed-loop measurement.

The Principal Engineer for Albertsons Media Collective is a hands-on technical leader responsible for architecting, building, and operating high-scale, low-latency systems behind consumer-facing applications and the core self-service advertising platforms. This role partners with product and engineering leadership to drive technology vision, ensures world-class reliability, and delivers robust experiences for internal and external users.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and evolve large-scale, distributed systems for retail media – ensuring low latency, high throughput, and reliability.
• Develop and implement platform-wide best practices for scale, observability, and resilience.
• Evaluate and select appropriate technologies, frameworks, and architecture patterns for real-time ad serving and measurement.
• Lead from the front; actively contribute to code, proofs of concept, and technical documentation.
• Mentor, coach, and inspire engineering teams, fostering a high-performance, collaborative culture.
• Influence roadmap, technical direction, and cross-team initiatives.

Performance Engineering

• Own performance optimization for latency-critical systems (e.g., ad delivery, mid-flight optimization, audience targeting).
• Define, implement, and monitor platform SLAs and performance KPIs.

Stakeholder Collaboration

• Partner closely with product managers, data scientists, designers, analytics, and customer teams to understand use cases and inform product/technical decisions.
• Serve as a key technical advisor for senior leadership and strategic partners.

Self-Service Platform Development

• Lead the design and buildout of self-service advertising platforms, enabling brands and agencies to seamlessly create, plan, execute, and measure campaigns for on-site and off-site inventory.
• Build abstractions and APIs that simplify the campaign management workflow for non-technical users.
• Drive automation and continuous improvement across onboarding, serving, reporting and analytics pipelines.

Core Requirements

• 12+ years' experience building large-scale, consumer-facing platforms in AdTech/Retail Media or similar industries.
• Deep expertise in designing, building, and operating distributed, low-latency, high-throughput systems (e.g., ad serving, real-time auctions/mediation, personalization engines).
• Experience with self-service platform architecture, API design, and workflow automation.
• Proficient with modern tech stacks (e.g., cloud-native, microservices, event-driven architectures, stream processing, NoSQL / databases).
• Demonstrated excellence in performance engineering, distributed systems, and fault-tolerant design.
• Strong leadership and mentoring capabilities; proven ability to influence and drive engineering best practices across teams.
• Advanced proficiency in one or more programming languages (Java, Go, Python, Scala, or similar).
• Experience with AdTech and Retail Media Networks and/or e-commerce platforms.

Desired Skills

• Familiarity with real-time analytics, ML-based targeting or optimization, and privacy / compliance in ad systems.
• Track record of shipping and operating mission-critical, self-serve SaaS platforms at scale.

Seniority level

• Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Full-time

Job function

• Information Technology and Engineering
• Industries: Retail