Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Advertiser Growth

Unity; New York (NY); On-site; USD 149,000 - 248,000; Full time

Job summary

Unity seeks a seasoned backend engineer to architect GenAI-powered creatives, design sophisticated budget pacing, and ensure high-throughput, fault-tolerant billing pipelines. You will lead experimentation infrastructure and drive data-driven decisions across multi-million-dollar campaigns.

A strong background in low-latency systems and real-time analytics is essential. The role spans financial integrity and marketplace growth, with mentoring responsibilities and collaboration across product and

Qualifications

• Advanced degree in computer science or relevant engineering-related field or equivalent experience.
• 6+ years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years on ads delivery systems.
• Extensive experience building and operating large-scale, low-latency backend systems using Java, Go, or Scala.
• Deep familiarity with budget control systems, feedback loops, or spend-prediction algorithms.
• Proven experience building or scaling experimentation platforms with variance reduction, interference effects, and marketplace metric design.
• Experience on mission-critical pipelines (billing, payments, clearinghouses) with data precision, idempotency, and fault tolerance.
• Experience or strong interest in building backend workflows for GenAI models for creative assets.
• Proficiency with real-time stream processing (Kafka, Flink, Spark) for event-based charging and performance feedback.
• Ability to lead complex, multi-quarter technical roadmaps and mentor senior engineers.

Responsibilities

• Next-Gen budget pacing: design and optimize pacing controllers to smooth advertiser spend across time zones and spikes.
• Creative GenAI infrastructure: integrate GenAI models to automate creation of image and video assets for campaigns.
• Marketplace experimentation engine: build infrastructure for high-velocity experimentation (A/B tests, switchbacks, holdouts).
• High-Scale billing reliability: design and maintain billing pipelines processing billions of events with accuracy.
• Scientific optimization: analyze datasets to balance spend velocity and advertiser performance using experiments.

Skills

Java

Go

Scala

Backend design

Education

Advanced CS degree or equivalent

Tools

Kafka

Flink

Spark

Job description

The opportunity

At Unity, we are building a world-class ad-tech ecosystem that connects billions of users with the creators and experiences they love. The Advertiser Growth team is the engine of this mission, ensuring that as our marketplace expands, advertisers have the intelligent tools, robust infrastructure, and rigorous experimentation frameworks needed to scale their impact.

In 2026, our roadmap is defined by three transformative pillars: Foundation, Smart, and Intelligence. This role is unique in its technical breadth, sitting at the intersection of financial execution, creative innovation, and marketplace science. You will architect the GenAI systems that build high-performing creatives, design the pacing algorithms that manage multi-million dollar budgets, ensure our billing pipelines handle massive scale with zero-fault tolerance, and build the experimentation infrastructure that allows us to scientifically evolve the marketplace. This is a high-stakes role where your technical leadership directly governs Unity’s financial integrity and the long-term growth of our ecosystem.

What you'll be doing

• Next-Gen budget pacing: Design and optimize sophisticated pacing controllers (PID, probabilistic forecasting) to smooth advertiser spend across diverse time zones and traffic spikes, ensuring optimal delivery and marketplace stability.


• Creative GenAI infrastructure: Lead the backend integration of Generative AI models (Diffusion, LLMs) to automate the creation of high-performing image and video assets tailored to specific campaign goals and formats.


• Marketplace experimentation engine: Build and scale the infrastructure for high-velocity experimentation, including A/B testing, switchback tests, and long-term holdouts to measure the impact of marketplace changes on advertiser ROI and platform health.


• High-Scale billing reliability: Architect and maintain high-throughput billing pipelines that process billions of events with 100% accuracy, bridging the gap between real-time ad delivery and mission-critical financial reconciliation.


• Scientific optimization: Analyze complex financial and marketplace datasets to refine the trade-off between spend velocity and advertiser performance, using experimentation results to tune pacing and billing logic.

What we're looking for

• Advanced degree in computer science or relevant engineering-related field or equivalent experience.


• 6+ years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years working on ads delivery systems.


• Extensive experience building and operating large-scale, low-latency backend systems using languages like Java, Go, or Scala.


• Deep familiarity with building or maintaining budget control systems, feedback loops, or spend-prediction algorithms.


• Proven experience building or scaling experimentation platforms, with a deep understanding of variance reduction, interference/network effects, and metric design in a marketplace context.


• A track record of working on \"mission-critical\" pipelines (like billing, payments, or clearinghouses) where data precision, idempotency, and fault tolerance are paramount.


• Experience or strong technical interest in building the backend workflows required to serve, scale, and store Generative AI models for creative asset generation.


• Proficiency with real-time stream processing (Kafka, Flink, or Spark) specifically applied to event-based charging and real-time performance feedback.


• A proven ability to lead complex, multi-quarter technical roadmaps and mentor senior engineers in a high-growth environment.

You might also have

• Experience embracing AI as a strategic advantage in engineering, following established best practices for code quality and security.

Additional information

• Relocation support is not available for this position

Life at Unity

Unity [NYSE: U] is the world’s leading game engine, powering play for more than 3 billion consumers each month. The top mobile games in the world, the most played PC indie titles, the most innovative console games, and virtually all of the top XR and Web Games are developed, deployed, and grown in Unity. Unity also enables teams across industries like automotive, manufacturing, and healthcare to design, simulate, and collaborate in 3D — closing the gap between ideas and reality. For more information, please visit www.unity.com.

Unity is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive, innovative environment with the best employees. Therefore, we provide employment opportunities without regard to age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender, or any other protected status in accordance with applicable law. If you have a disability that means there are preparations or accommodations we can make to help ensure you have a comfortable and positive interview experience, please fill out this form to let us know. This position requires the incumbent to have a sufficient knowledge of English to have professional verbal and written exchanges in this language since the performance of the duties related to this position requires frequent and regular communication with colleagues and partners located worldwide and whose common language is English.

*Note: This range reflects the anticipated base salary for this position. Beyond base salary, this role may be eligible for equity awards and participation in our company incentive plans (such as annual discretionary bonuses or sales commissions). The final offer amount will depend on several factors, including geographic location and the candidate’s relevant experience, professional background, and skill set. Gross pay salary $148,700—$248,400 USD