Sr. Software Engineer

Unity Technologies SF; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 273,000; Full time

Job summary

Unity Technologies SF is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to architect and implement distributed data systems at scale for near real-time reporting. You will design high-throughput, low-latency pipelines and operate in a cloud-native environment, collaborating across ML, Reporting, and external partners to deliver accurate signals.

The role emphasizes architectural modernization, including migrating legacy event handling to a modern gRPC-based service, and ownership of ad-serving

Qualifications

• Strong foundation in distributed systems and systems design.
• Hands-on experience building and operating large-scale data processing systems.
• Deep understanding of streaming concepts: exactly-once semantics, watermarking and event-time processing, stateful stream processing, checkpointing and recovery, and backpressure handling.
• Production experience with frameworks such as Apache Flink, Spark, Kafka, or similar technologies.
• Proficiency in Python, Java, or Scala.
• Experience with workflow orchestration tools such as Airflow for stream and batch coordination.
• Strong understanding of cloud-native architectures and distributed infrastructure including Kubernetes, containerization, and cloud platforms.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end attribution pipeline and be a core engineer on data signals from ad interaction to data warehouse and ML/Reporting teams.
• Build and operate real-time ad event processing for terabytes of data at scale including enrichments, transformations, and privacy operations.
• Lead architectural modernization with migration to a gRPC-based service, ensuring backfill and failover without data loss.
• Improve low-latency data services and caching/persistence across ad lifecycle.
• Build and maintain ad serving infrastructure including caching, logging, tracing, authentication, and Kafka-backed tooling.
• Drive real-time data health monitoring and batch pipelines producing daily BigQuery datasets.
• Collaborate with ML, Reporting, and external partners for timely signal reporting and recovery efforts.

Skills

Distributed systems

Systems design

Streaming concepts

Python/Java/Scala

Airflow

Kubernetes

Cloud-native architectures

Tools

Apache Flink

Spark

Kafka

Python

Java

Scala

Airflow

Job description

The opportunity

Unity is building a robust, near real-time reporting platform that powers critical analytics and decision-making across our ecosystem. We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to help architect and implement the distributed data systems that drive this platform at scale.

In this role, you'll design and build high-throughput, low-latency data processing pipelines that power reporting used by internal teams and external customers. You'll operate at the intersection of distributed systems, stream processing, and cloud-native infrastructure - ensuring correctness, reliability, and scalability in a high-volume production environment.

This is a high-impact role where engineering rigor, architectural clarity, and production ownership matter.

What you'll be doing

• Own the end-to-end attribution pipeline. You will be a core engineer on the team responsible for getting attribution data right - from the moment a user interacts with an ad to the signal landing accurately in our data warehouse and in the hands of our ML and Reporting teams. This means owning a portfolio of high-throughput, latency-sensitive services and streaming pipelines that operate at the center of Unity's mobile advertising infrastructure.
• Build and operate real-time ad event processing. You will design, build, and operate the online services that receive ad interaction events from mobile SDKs and other partners, process terabytes of data at scale - including enrichments, transformations, and privacy operations - and deliver signals to external and internal partners in real time.
• Lead our architectural modernization. A significant part of your work will be an active migration, replacing a legacy event-handling layer with a modern gRPC-based service. This is greenfield development within a production system, requiring careful design with backfill and failover behavior while preserving data accuracy throughout the cutover.
• Improve low-latency data services. You will improve the caching layer that serves data on every ad request within strict latency budgets, and own the persistence layer that links auction, fill, placement, and gamer identities together across the ad lifecycle.
• Build and maintain critical ad serving infrastructure. You will build and own multiple services that support ad serving - including negative targeting and block listing - across the team's service portfolio. Responsibilities include logging, tracing, and authentication; a Kafka-backed caching framework; health check and readiness probe infrastructure; and Docker-based integrations.
• Drive data health monitoring and quality. You will own real-time monitoring of data health, detecting anomalies, event delivery rates, and data quality signals as they happen. You will also build and maintain the batch data pipeline jobs that produce daily datasets in BigQuery.
• Collaborate across ML, Reporting, and external partners. You will be the team that ML modeling, Reporting, and external partners rely on for timely and accurate signal reporting. When something goes wrong, you will lead the investigation and recovery.

What we're looking for

• Strong foundation in distributed systems and systems design
• Hands-on experience building and operating large-scale data processing systems
• Deep understanding of streaming concepts: exactly-once semantics, watermarking and event-time processing, stateful stream processing, checkpointing and recovery, and backpressure handling
• Production experience with frameworks such as Apache Flink, Spark, Kafka, or similar technologies
• Proficiency in Python, Java, or Scala
• Experience with workflow orchestration tools such as Airflow for stream and batch coordination
• Strong understanding of cloud-native architectures and distributed infrastructure including Kubernetes, containerization, and cloud platforms

You might also have

• Experience migrating legacy systems to modern architectures in production environments

Zone A

$210,300 - $273,400 USD

Zone B

$187,200 - $243,300 USD

Zone C

$165,600 - $215,200 USD

Benefits

At Unity, we want our team members to thrive. We offer a wide range of benefits designed to support well-being and

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.

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.