Senior Software Engineer - OpenPath

The Trade Desk; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 183,000 - 274,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Innovative culture

Broad technical exposure

Job summary

A global advertising technology firm seeks a Senior Software Engineer for the OpenPath team based in San Jose, California. This role is pivotal in architecting systems for direct publisher integrations and enhancing transparency within programmatic advertising. The ideal candidate has a strong background in building distributed systems, possesses technical leadership skills, and thrives in collaborative environments. A competitive salary ranging from $183,000 to $274,000 is offered, alongside opportunities to influence billions in advertising spend.

Responsibilities

• Architect and design scalable, high-performance systems for publisher integrations.
• Lead platform infrastructure efforts including Prebid support.
• Develop and maintain the publisher platform for integrations.

Skills

Building large distributed systems

Technical leadership

Collaborative team player

Architectural design

Prototyping and evolving solutions

Tools

C#

Scala

Go

SQL

Docker

Kubernetes

React

TypeScript

Job description

Senior Software Engineer - OpenPath

The Trade Desk is a global technology company with a mission to create a better, more open internet for everyone through principled, intelligent advertising. Handling over 1 trillion queries per day, our platform operates at an unprecedented scale. We have also built something even stronger and more valuable: an award‑winning culture based on trust, ownership, empathy, and collaboration.

About OpenPath – OpenPath provides a direct, transparent connection between The Trade Desk and leading premium publishers, enabling efficient, objective, and high‑quality access to inventory for advertisers. By simplifying the programmatic supply chain and reducing intermediaries, OpenPath brings supply‑path transparency, cost efficiency, and improved visibility into each impression’s value and source.

Objective – OpenPath focuses on creating and managing direct integrations with publishers while providing a robust publisher platform. Unlike an SSP, The Trade Desk remains buy‑side focused—we do not optimize publisher yield or manage direct deals. Our mission is to deliver transparency and competition that lead to better outcomes for advertisers.

Key Features

• Direct access to inventory from top publishers through The Trade Desk platform
• Infrastructure designed to integrate with transparent demand solutions, including Prebid’s open‑source header bidding
• Emphasis on supply‑path transparency, cost efficiency, and visibility into cost/value
• A buy‑side‑only approach supporting competition, innovation, and objective decision‑making

Benefits for Advertisers

• Fewer supply chain hops and greater efficiency
• Objective evaluation of supply paths with no preferential treatment
• Increased transparency into cost drivers, supply sources, and impression value

The Role

As a Senior Software Engineer on the OpenPath team, you will serve as a key technical leader responsible for architecting and building the systems that power direct publisher integrations and the publisher platform. You will work on highly impactful greenfield projects that shape the industry’s future—improving transparency, efficiency, and control across billions of impressions and dollars in programmatic spend.

What You’ll Do

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Architect and design scalable, high‑performance systems that enable direct publisher integrations and transparent supply paths
• Lead platform infrastructure efforts, including components that support Prebid header bidding and publisher tooling
• Drive key architectural decisions for greenfield codebases and next‑generation services

Execution & Collaboration

• Partner closely with product managers, data scientists, client services, data partnerships, inventory teams, and FP&A to translate business needs into technical solutions
• Develop and maintain the publisher platform that empowers publishers to manage their integrations
• Drive system performance improvements to support large datasets (e.g., 100% avails, user data) with high availability and low latency
• Mentor engineers across the team and elevate engineering practices
• Champion an iterative, fail‑fast culture—rapidly prototyping, learning, and evolving solutions
• Set and uphold technical standards for distributed systems, reliability, and platform development

Technologies We Use

• Backend: C#, Scala, Go
• Frontend: React, Redux, TypeScript, Puppeteer, Jest
• Data: SQL, Spark
• Databases: SQL Server, Vertica, Aerospike
• Infrastructure: Docker, Kubernetes

Who You Are

• Software Engineers with proven experience building and scaling large distributed systems
• Strong architectural instincts and ability to design systems for reliability, performance, and scale
• A technical leader with experience mentoring engineers and leading cross‑team initiatives
• Deeply curious about the business and passionate about using technology to transform outcomes
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity, iterating quickly, and pivoting when needed
• Collaborative and energized by working across multiple teams and disciplines
• Motivated by transparency, simplicity, and building principled systems
• Experience with high‑scale, real‑time systems or platform development is a strong plus

Why OpenPath Is a Great Team

• Massive business impact: Influence billions in ad spend and reshape how premium inventory is accessed
• Extreme scale: Work with high‑volume publisher integrations, 100% avails, user data, and real‑time systems
• Broad technical exposure: Touch multiple services across the company—from publisher integrations to demand‑side infrastructure
• Deep cross‑functional engagement: Collaborate closely with engineering, product, data science, operations, and commercial teams
• Greenfield development: Build several new services and platforms from the ground up
• Innovation culture: Help define the future of transparent, efficient supply paths in programmatic advertising
• Modern technology stack: Build cutting‑edge services and lead the evolution toward agile architectures

Position Impact

OpenPath is a major strategic initiative that introduces a transparent, efficient alternative supply path for advertisers. As a Software Engineer, you will shape the foundational infrastructure that connects advertisers directly to premium publishers—driving industry‑wide transparency and improving outcomes at global scale.

Equal Opportunity

The Trade Desk does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firm recruiters. Fees will not be paid in the event a candidate submitted by a recruiter without an agreement in place is hired; such resumes will be deemed the sole property of The Trade Desk. The Trade Desk is an equal‑opportunity employer. All aspects of employment will be based on merit, competence, performance, and business needs. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local law.

Location & Salary

San Francisco Bay Area – $183,000—$274,000 USD. CO, CA, IL, NY, WA, and Washington DC residents only.

Accommodations

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