Lead Real-Time Bidding Systems Architect

Insight Global; Redwood City (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Insight Global is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead design and development of ultra-low-latency buy-side ad tech systems. You will own critical components from bidding to optimization, mentor engineers, and collaborate with ML and data teams on performance improvements.

You will architect high-throughput real-time bidding platforms, drive system scalability, and ensure data quality and compliance across the stack.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience in ad tech / performance advertising.
• Strong hands-on experience with Golang in building low-latency backend systems.
• Proven experience designing and operating real-time bidding platforms or ad serving systems.
• Deep understanding of campaign pacing, budget allocation, and performance optimization algorithms.
• Experience with streaming and distributed systems (Kafka, Flink, Spark).
• Familiarity with OpenRTB, VAST, and programmatic advertising workflows.
• Solid knowledge of SQL and PostgreSQL; experience with analytics platforms (Snowflake, BigQuery).
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and containers (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Strong data structures, algorithms, and distributed system design.
• Ability to collaborate cross-functionally with product, data science, analytics, and ML teams.

Responsibilities

• Architect, design, and build high-throughput, ultra-low-latency RTB systems for buy-side platforms.
• Lead bidder services handling millions of QPS with latency SLAs using Golang/C/C++.
• Design and implement campaign pacing, budget management, and delivery optimization across multiple objectives.
• Own systems for deal execution, auction participation, bid shading, and supply path optimization.
• Build and evolve real-time data pipelines for impressions, clicks, conversions, and attribution with Kafka, Flink, or Spark.
• Collaborate with ML engineers to productionize bid optimization and forecasting models.
• Integrate support for programmatic advertising protocols (OpenRTB, VAST).
• Drive scalability, fault tolerance, data governance, privacy, and latency improvements.
• Mentor engineers and lead technical reviews; establish coding standards.

Skills

Golang

RTB systems

Campaign pacing

Distributed systems

Data pipelines

Kafka

Flink

Spark

OpenRTB

SQL/PostgreSQL

Cloud platforms

Docker

Kubernetes

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Insight Global is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead design and development of ultra-low-latency buy-side ad tech systems. You will own critical components from bidding to optimization, mentor engineers, and collaborate with ML and data teams on performance improvements.

You will architect high-throughput real-time bidding platforms, drive system scalability, and ensure data quality and compliance across the stack.