Lead Data Engineer - Auctions & Outcomes

Kargo; New York (NY); On-site; USD 200,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Kargo is building toward a unified platform for self-serve campaigns across CTV, web, mobile, and social. You will own data engineering reporting, domain data sharing, and log processing pipelines, while raising observability and leading a team of data engineers.

The role blends hands-on engineering with leadership, in a fast-paced adtech environment. Experience with large-scale Spark-based transformations, AWS, and Kubernetes is required, along with strong collaboration with analysts and

Qualifications

• You've owned large-scale, interdependent data systems in production, with deep Spark expertise and cost-conscious, high-performance transformations.
• You've led engineers, setting direction, reviewing work, developing people, while staying hands-on.
• You're hands-on with infrastructure: comfortable in AWS and Kubernetes, able to dig into logs and metrics to diagnose issues.
• You engage analysts and business stakeholders directly, defining metrics and roadmapping across teams.
• You're fluent with AI tooling in your workflow, and you design codebases and data for AI readability.

Responsibilities

• Own business-metric reporting for data engineering across publisher performance, campaigns, revenue, spend, and attribution.
• Own the domain's data sharing: reports, log-level data for partners, and the data sharing API.
• Level up the event log processing pipelines: Spark transformations, testable and ready for streaming as needed.
• Own and raise the bar on observability and alert response: standardize signals, runbooks, and AI-assisted triage context.
• Lead and grow the domain's data engineers: set standards for testability, cost efficiency, and reusable patterns.

Skills

Spark

Python

Airflow

Iceberg

Leadership

AWS

Kubernetes

Analytics

AI tooling

Tools

Snowflake

ClickHouse

GitHub Actions

ArgoCD

VictoriaMetrics

Prometheus

Grafana

Job description

Who We Are

Kargo creates powerful moments of connection between brands and consumers to build businesses. Every day, our 600+ employees work to radically raise the bar on what agentic AI, CTV, eCommerce, social, and mobile can do to deliver unique ad experiences across the world’s most premium platforms. Taking a creative science approach to all we do, we continuously innovate solutions that outperform industry benchmarks and client expectations. Now 20+ years strong, Kargo has offices in NYC, Chicago, LA, Dallas, Sydney, Auckland, London and Waterford, Ireland.

Who We Hire

Techies who want to build the future. Creatives who want to design it better. Communicators to win business. Collaborators to build it. Data pros who turn numbers into insights. Product builders who turn ideas into innovations. Anyone eager to be on a team that doesn’t stop to ask what’s next, because they’re already building it.

The Opportunity

Kargo is building toward a unified platform where advertisers run campaigns across CTV, web, mobile apps, and social entirely self-serve – the first time that capability goes directly into clients\' hands. It raises the bar on the pipelines behind it, which already process billions of events per hour and now need stability, speed, a consistent vocabulary across surfaces, and observability that catches problems before clients do (for engineers and AI agents alike).

In this role you\'ll own that work across supply and demand, measurement, reporting, and the log processing pipelines underneath. You\'ll also set the technical bar for the domain\'s engineers.

The Daily To-Do

• Own business-metric reporting for data engineering : publisher performance, campaign delivery, revenue and spend, and attribution. Shape the definitions that make a cross-surface campaign read the same everywhere.


• Own the domain\'s data sharing : the reports publishers and advertisers receive, log-level data for partners and clients, and our data sharing API.


• Level up the event log processing pipelines at the heart of the domain : idiomatic Spark, refactored for testability, and a path to streaming as demand for faster insights grows.


• Own and raise the bar on the domain\'s observability and alert response . Inventory today\'s signals, monitors and alerts, centralize them, and bring each to standard: a freshness and quality commitment, context for AI-assisted triage, and a runbook.


• Lead and grow the domain\'s data engineers . Define the standards for testability, cost efficiency and the patterns worth repeating, then raise the team to them through your own code, reviews, and knowledge-sharing, recording decisions in ADRs.

Qualifications

• You\'ve owned large-scale, interdependent data systems in production, with deep Spark expertise: idiomatic, testable transformations tuned for cost and performance, built on Python, Airflow and Iceberg.


• You\'ve led engineers, setting direction, reviewing work, developing people, while staying hands-on.


• You\'re hands-on with infrastructure: comfortable in AWS and Kubernetes, able to dig into logs and metrics to work out why a workload is failing or running slowly, and glad to pass that on.


• You engage analysts and business stakeholders directly, on metric definitions, not just requirements, and turn ambiguity into a sequenced roadmap, managing dependencies across teams and saying what isn\'t getting done.


• You\'re fluent with AI tooling in your own workflow, and you reason about what makes a codebase and its data legible to it.

Strongly Preferred

• Exchange, SSP or DSP experience: log-level auction and bidstream data at scale.


• Measurement and attribution in AdTech: pixels, trackers, 3P measurement partners.


• Migrating data systems: SQL to Spark, batch to streaming with Kafka or Redpanda.


• Snowflake, where reporting aggregation still lives, plus Clickhouse or similar.


• CI/CD with GitHub Actions/ArgoCD; monitoring with VictoriaMetrics/Prometheus/Grafana.

Nice To Have

• Building internal tooling or libraries that other engineering teams adopted.


• Consolidating or migrating data systems following an acquisition.

In accordance with applicable federal, state, and local pay transparency laws, the anticipated base salary range for this position is listed below. In addition to base salary, this role is eligible for variable compensation — either the Kargo Sales Incentive Plan (sales roles) or an annual discretionary bonus (all other roles). Actual compensation may vary based on factors such as geographic location, work experience, education, and skills.

U.S Salary Range

$200,000 — $230,000 USD

Our Laurels

• AdAge Best Places to Work


• ThinkLA Partner of the Year


• Built In Best Places to Work


• Cynopsis 2025 Top Women in Media - Jeannine Shao Collins


• Martech Breakthrough Awards - Best Overall Adtech Company


• Digiday Media Awards Best Event


• Cynopsis Media Impact Awards-Best CTV Platform


• Martech Breakthrough Awards-CTV Innovation


• Adweek Media Plan of the Year Awards - Best Use of Insights

Follow Our Lead

• Big Picture: kargo.com


• The Latest: Instagram (@kargo.hq) and LinkedIn (Kargo)

Kargo is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse workplace where all employees and applicants are treated with respect and dignity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnic origin, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, marital or family status, national origin, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local, state, or federal law. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment.

Pursuant to applicable fair chance laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, Kargo will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment.