Senior Software Engineer, Ads Creative Effectiveness

United States Digital Space LLC; United States; Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare Benefits

401k with employer match

Global benefits program

Family planning support

Mental health & coaching

Job summary

Reddit is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to lead the Ads Creative Effectiveness engineering effort. You will architect high-performance backends for ad creative generation, build end-to-end editing pipelines, and scale systems tying ad performance to creative outputs.

You will mentor engineers, drive design reviews, and partner with Product/UX/ML teams to ship compliant, high-impact campaigns at scale.

Qualifications

• Expert Software Engineering & System Design: architecting and scaling distributed backends (e.g., Python, Go).
• Applied AI/ML Systems Engineering: model serving, data pipelines, real-time workflows.
• Strategic Product Engineering: align technical roadmaps with advertiser needs.
• Operational Excellence & Ownership: reliability, observability, maintainability.
• Technical Leadership & Influence: communicate trade-offs to stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead Creative Engineering Architecture: design high-performance backends for ad creative generation.
• Advanced Editing & Asset Workflows: develop image/video editing engines and APIs.
• Scale Performance Feedback Systems: ingest performance data to optimize generation flywheel.
• Optimize Model Orchestration & Efficiency: manage high-concurrency inference and cost scaling.
• Robust Safety & Compliance Systems: build content filtering and safety layers.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: align with Product, UX, and Ads ML leadership.

Skills

Software architecture

Distributed systems

AI/ML systems

Product engineering

Leadership

Mentorship

Creative tooling

Tools

Python

Go

Microservices

Job description

the company is a community of communities. It's built on shared interests, passion, and trust, and is home to the most open and authentic conversations on the internet. Every day, the company users submit, vote, and comment on the topics they care most about. With 100,000+ active communities and approximately 130 million daily active unique visitors, the company is one of the internet's largest sources of information. For more information, visit www.redditinc.com.

the company has a flexible workforce! If you happen to live close to one of our physical office locations our doors are open for you to come into the office as often as you'd like. Don't live near one of our offices? No worries: You can apply to work remotely in any country in which we have a physical presence.

About the Team

The Ads Creative Effectiveness team is aimed at improving the impact of ad creative at the company through generative and predictive products. We adapt and finetune LLMs/VLMs to help advertisers make impactful images, videos, text and more. We build performance predictors to understand and rank ad components, ensuring the advertiser ships the best possible campaigns. We construct insight and recommendation engines to guide advertisers towards best practices and key enhancements, distilling knowledge about what works at the company to supercharge their performance.

About the Role:

the company'sAds Creative Effectiveness team sits at the heart of our creative strategy, building GenAI and predictive products that help advertisers ship high-impact campaigns. We are searching for a Senior Software Engineer to help us build the future of generative products for ad creative at the company - from contributing to the development of best-in-class image, video and copy generators that leverage the company's best practices, performance-guided generations that maximize clicks and conversions, and brand safe, product preserving image/video editing pipelines at scale.

Responsibilities:

• Lead Creative Engineering Architecture: Drive the design and implementation of high-performance backends for ad creative generation. You will own the architectural vision for brand asset preservation and style consistency, ensuring our GenAI stack is modular, extensible, and seamlessly integrated into the company’s infrastructure.

• Advanced Editing & Asset Workflows: Lead the development of end-to-end image and video editing engines. You will design the underlying APIs and logic that allow for complex asset manipulation while maintaining strict, automated adherence to brand guidelines.

• Scale Performance Feedback Systems: Architect the infrastructure that bridges the gap between ad performance (CTR, CVR) and the creative engine. You will build scalable systems to ingest high-volume performance data and programmatically optimize the generation flywheel.

• Optimize Model Orchestration & Efficiency: Solve complex engineering challenges around high-concurrency inference, latency optimization, and cost-efficient scaling at the company's global volume.

• Robust Safety & Compliance Systems: Design and maintain mission-critical middleware for content filtering and compliance. You'll ensure our safety layers are resilient, low-latency, and capable of preventing non-compliant or infringing content from reaching the platform.

• Cross-Functional Technical Leadership: Partner deeply with Product, UX, and Ads ML leadership to help define the technical roadmap for ACE. You'll translate broad business objectives into concrete technical designs and build integrations into the Ad Manager UI and delivery stacks.

• Engineering Excellence: Raise the bar for code quality, system reliability, and documentation within the team. You will lead design reviews, mentor mid-level engineers, and implement guardrails that protect the integrity of our advertiser and user experiences.

Required Qualifications:

• Expert Software Engineering & System Design: Extensive experience architecting and scaling distributed backend systems (e.g., Python, Go). You have a proven track record of designing robust microservices and APIs that are not only performant but also extensible and easy for others to build upon.

• Applied AI/ML Systems Engineering: Strong experience bridging the gap between ML models and production software. You understand the nuances of model serving, building resilient data pipelines for LLMs/VLMs, and optimizing the infrastructure required for real-time generative workflows.

• Strategic Product Engineering: A deep understanding of how technical decisions impact the business. You don't just build features; you partner with Product to define them, translating complex advertiser needs into scalable technical roadmaps that drive revenue and retention.

• Operational Excellence & Ownership: A "startup mindset" paired with senior-level discipline. You have a bias for action but prioritize system reliability, observability, and long-term maintainability, even when moving fast in ambiguous environments.

• Technical Leadership & Influence: Exceptional communication skills with the ability to build consensus across Product, Design, and ML teams. You are adept at explaining complex technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders and driving technical alignment across the organization.

• Mentorship & High Standards: A passion for raising the engineering bar. You take pride in conducting thorough design and code reviews, mentoring junior/mid-level engineers, and fostering a culture of technical excellence within the team.

• Domain Expertise in Creative Tooling: Proven experience building complex asset-heavy systems - such as automated image/video processing pipelines or high-scale content creation workflows.

Benefits:

• Comprehensive Healthcare Benefits and Income Replacement Programs

• 401k with Employer Match

• Global Benefit programs that fit your lifestyle, from workspace to professional development to caregiving support

• Family Planning Support

• Gender-Affirming Care

• Mental Health & Coaching Benefits

• Flexible Vacation & Paid Volunteer Time Off

• Generous Paid Parental Leave

Pay Transparency:

This job posting may span more than one career level.

In addition to base salary, this job is eligible to receive equity in the form of restricted stock units, and depending on the position offered, it may also be eligible to receive a commission. Additionally, the company offers a wide range of benefits to U.S.-based employees, including medical, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k) program with employer match, generous time off for vacation, and parental leave. To learn more, please visit