Lead Staff Software Engineer - Partner Platform

The Trade Desk; Bellevue (WA); Remote; USD 137,000 - 252,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare (medical, dental, vision)

401k with company match

Disability insurance

Life insurance

Tuition reimbursement

Parental leave

Vacation: 120–160 hours first year; 13

Stock Purchase Plan

Job summary

The Trade Desk is seeking a senior technical leader to define and drive the architecture of our partner-facing platform. You will oversee scalable systems spanning federated GraphQL, RESTful APIs, SDKs, and modular front-ends, while contributing code and guiding teams across TypeScript/React and C#/.NET services.

You will establish API standards, security and observability practices, and mentor engineers as you translate product needs into durable platform choices and reusable components.

Qualifications

• Lead complex software initiatives from definition through production operation.
• Experience designing durable APIs including GraphQL federation and REST/interfaces.
• Strong knowledge of distributed systems and cloud platforms.

Responsibilities

• Define the technical vision and architectural roadmap for the partner-facing platform.
• Lead scalable platform design across GraphQL, REST, SDKs, and front-end components.
• Contribute through prototypes, production code, and architecture/code reviews.
• Establish standards for API schema, security, privacy, reliability, and observability.
• Guide cross-team decisions on schema governance and platform tooling.
• Foster high standards and mentor engineers across teams.

Skills

Staff-level technical authority

Distributed systems

GraphQL federation

TypeScript/React

C#/.NET

Kubernetes

API design

Code reviews/mentorship

System architecture

DevOps / observability

Education

Degree in computer science or related field

Tools

GraphQL

React

TypeScript

C#

SQL Server or similar

Kubernetes

Job description

The Trade Desk is a global technology company and the world’s leading independent platform for digital advertising, with over 3,000 employees across more than 30 offices. Our technology helps advertisers reach the right audiences across the open internet — from streaming TV and podcasts to mobile apps, news, and more.

Advertising powers the content people love. By making it more transparent, effective, and responsible, we help support trusted journalism, quality entertainment, and creators worldwide. The world’s brands and agencies rely on us to reach their customers and grow their businesses responsibly.

The scale of our platform brings unique technical challenges — from processing massive datasets in real time to building systems that operate reliably on a global scale. When you work here, your impact is worldwide. We welcome diverse perspectives, encourage curiosity, and build teams that learn from one another. If you’re driven to solve meaningful challenges, we’d love to meet you.

What you’ll do

Technical leadership

• Define the technical vision and architectural roadmap for The TradeDesk’s partner-facing platform
• Lead the design of a scalable platform spanning federated GraphQL, RESTful APIs, SDKs, modular micro-frontends, integration workflows, developer tools, and polished web experiences.
• Make hands‑on contributions through prototypes, production code, architecture reviews, and code reviews across TypeScript/React front ends and C#/.NET GraphQL services.
• Establish standards for schema and API consistency, backward compatibility, authorization, security, privacy, reliability, observability, Kubernetes‑based operations, and SQL data modelling.
• Simplify the partner journey from discovery and onboarding through testing, certification, launch, and ongoing optimization.
• Turn shared needs across advertisers, data providers, publishers, and sellers into reusable platform services and front‑end components rather than one‑off integrations.
• Guide cross‑team decisions on schema governance, platform tooling, and architecture, balancing usability, scalability, reliability, security, privacy, and delivery speed.

Execution and influence

• Partner with Product Management, Design, and engineering teams to shape the roadmap, technical approach, and delivery priorities.
• Break down ambiguous, cross‑team problems into clear technical plans, milestones, dependencies, and risks.
• Drive alignment across teams that contribute to or consume the platform, communicating technical decisions and trade‑offs clearly.
• Define and improve measures of platform health and partner success, including integration time, adoption, API reliability, and developer experience.
• Promote high standards for production of readiness, operational ownership, and continuous improvement.

Engineering excellence

• Raise the engineering bar through thoughtful design and code reviews, technical mentorship, and practical guidance.
• Coach engineers in system design, debugging, delivery, and operating services in production.
• Lead by example as a trusted, hands‑on technical partner who helps teams solve difficult problems and make durable decisions.
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive environment where engineers share knowledge, challenge assumptions constructively, and take ownership of outcomes.

Who you are

You do not need to meet every qualification below. We are interested in candidates who demonstrate most of these capabilities and can learn the rest.

• You have a sustained record of leading complex, high‑impact software initiatives from definition through production operation.
• You act as a Staff‑level technical authority while remaining capable of and willing to contribute directly to the codebase.
• You have experience leading engineers with different levels of experience and helping senior engineers and technical leads grow.
• You have led initiatives involving several engineering and business teams, particularly where shared platform decisions affected teams outside your immediate organization.
• You can turn an ambiguous product vision into a coherent architecture and an executable delivery plan.
• You have strong knowledge of distributed systems, cloud platforms, service‑oriented architecture, and modern software delivery practices.
• You have experience designing durable APIs — GraphQL especially, including federation and schema evolution — as well as REST or event‑driven integration interfaces.
• You are experienced in modern frontend development: TypeScript, React, component‑driven architecture, and data‑rich single‑page applications, ideally at monorepo scale.
• You are proficient in C# and TypeScript/JavaScript, and comfortable with SQL and relational data modelling (SQL Server or similar).
• You understand the needs of developers integrating with an external platform, including authentication and authorization, documentation, testing, versioning, observability, and supportability.
• You can evaluate technical trade‑offs involving usability, scalability, reliability, security, privacy, and delivery speed.
• You communicate effectively with engineers, product leaders, commercial stakeholders, and external partners.
• You lead with confidence and low ego. You advocate for well‑reasoned decisions, invite competing perspectives, and change course when the evidence supports it.
• You have significant professional software engineering experience, typically 10 or more years, or an equivalent record of technical impact.
• You have experience directly managing engineers or a clear record of comparable people leadership.
• You have a degree in computer science or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

Experience that would be especially valuable

• Building developer platforms, app marketplaces, or self‑service onboarding systems.
• Developing full‑stack applications and data‑rich partner experiences with React and .NET (or comparable stacks).
• Working with federated GraphQL (Apollo Federation, HotChocolate, or similar) and schema governance across multiple teams.
• Building or operating micro‑frontend architectures and large frontend monorepos with modern build tooling (Bazel, pnpm workspaces, webpack/Vite).
• Creating public APIs, SDKs, technical documentation systems, sandboxes, or automated certification tooling.
• Working with identity, authorization, consent, data governance, or privacy‑sensitive systems — for example, identity solutions such as UID2/EUID, persona‑based access control, or entitlement systems.
• Operating distributed services on Kubernetes and containers across multiple public clouds (AWS and Azure), with relational databases, feature‑flag and experimentation systems, and modern observability tooling (Prometheus, New Relic, OpenTelemetry, or similar).
• Working in advertising technology or with publishers, data providers, measurement partners, retailers, brands, or agencies.
• Using AI‑assisted experiences to improve documentation discovery, integration support, or developer productivity.

In accordance with various US state laws, the range provided is the Trade Desk's reasonable estimate of the base compensation for this role. The actual amount may differ based on non‑discriminatory factors such as experience, knowledge, skills, and location. All employees may be eligible to become The Trade Desk shareholders through eligibility for stock‑based compensation grants, which are awarded to employees based on company and individual performance. The Trade Desk also offers other compensation such as variable compensation‑based incentives and commissions.

Plus, expected benefits for this role include comprehensive healthcare (medical, dental, and vision) with premiums paid in full for employees and dependents, retirement benefits such as a 401k plan and company match, short and long‑term disability coverage, basic life insurance, well‑being benefits, reimbursement for certain tuition expenses, parental leave, sick time of 1 hour per 30 hours worked, vacation time for full‑time employees up to 120 hours thru the first year and 160 hours thereafter, and around 13 paid holidays per year. Employees can also purchase The Trade Desk stock at a discount through The Trade Desk’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

The Trade Desk also offers a competitive benefits package.

Note: Interns are not eligible for variable incentive awards such as stock‑based compensation, retirement plan, vacation, tuition reimbursement or parental leave

At the Trade Desk, Base Salary is one part of our competitive total compensation and benefits package and is determined using a salary range. The base salary range for this role is $137,300—$251,800 USD

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, The Trade Desk is committed to creating an inclusive hiring experience where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.

Please reach out to us at [e-mail] to request an accommodation or discuss any accessibility needs you may require to access our Company Website or navigate any part of the hiring process.

When you contact us, please include your preferred contact details and specify the nature of your accommodation request or questions. Any information you share will be handled confidentially and will not impact our hiring decisions.