Principal Backend Architect - High-Scale Ads Platform

Xbox Media Solutions (Formerly Activision Blizzard Media); San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 171,000 - 317,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision

401(k) with company match

Paid holidays & vacation

Relocation assistance

Mental health & wellbeing programs

Job summary

Xbox Media in San Francisco is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead high-scale backend systems for mobile advertising, anchoring technical direction to business goals. This hybrid role is based in San Francisco, CA, with collaboration across engineering, product, and partner teams.

You will mentor staff engineers, set architecture direction, and build reusable platform components while improving reliability and velocity across the org.

Qualifications

• Extensive backend software engineering experience with large-scale systems.
• Experience leading technical direction and architecture decisions across teams.
• Proven ability to mentor staff-level engineers and emerging leaders.
• Strong communication with cross-functional teams across multiple business units.

Responsibilities

• Own engineering outcomes for org-critical systems and connect work to business priorities.
• Define long-term technical direction and balance trade-offs across architecture, cost, and reliability.
• Build alignment across engineering leadership, product leadership, and adjacent orgs.
• Improve delivery, reliability, and learning with scalable processes and automation.
• Guide sequencing and risk management for high-impact initiatives.
• Develop staff-level engineers and mentoring bands through design reviews and standards.
• Lead architecture direction, hiring calibration, and platform evolution.
• Create reusable systems and frameworks to boost engineering leverage.

Skills

Go

GCP

Cloud Run/GKE

Distributed systems

Backend architecture

Mentorship

Cross-functional leadership

Tools

Go

GCP

Cloud Run/GKE

Distributed data systems

Job description

Xbox Media in San Francisco is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead high-scale backend systems for mobile advertising, anchoring technical direction to business goals. This hybrid role is based in San Francisco, CA, with collaboration across engineering, product, and partner teams.

You will mentor staff engineers, set architecture direction, and build reusable platform components while improving reliability and velocity across the org.