Staff Software Engineer - Platform & API Architect

Socket.dev; Bellevue (WA); On-site; USD 137,000 - 252,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock-based compensation

401k with company match

Comprehensive health benefits

Generous vacation

Employee stock purchase plan

Job summary

The Trade Desk is a global technology company delivering a leading independent platform for digital advertising. We are looking for a highly experienced technical leader to shape the partner-facing platform, combining distributed systems design with modern frontend and backend capabilities.

You will define architectural standards, guide cross‑team decisions, mentor engineers, and contribute to code while building scalable GraphQL/REST services, SDKs, and frontend components.

Qualifications

• Sustained record of leading complex software initiatives from definition to production.
• Act as a Staff-level technical authority while also contributing to codebase when needed.
• Experience leading engineers and growing senior engineers/tech leads.
• Led initiatives across multiple teams affecting platform decisions.
• Turn ambiguous product visions into executable architecture and plans.
• Strong knowledge of distributed systems, cloud platforms, SOA, and modern delivery practices.
• Experience designing durable APIs including GraphQL federation and REST/interfaces.
• Proficient in TypeScript, React, and data-rich SPA at scale; strong C# and SQL skills.
• Ability to evaluate trade-offs across usability, performance, security, privacy, and speed.

Responsibilities

• Define the technical vision and roadmap for the partner-facing platform.
• Lead scalable design across GraphQL, REST, SDKs, and micro-frontends.
• Contribute to production code and architecture reviews.
• Set standards for schema, API consistency, and security.
• Guide cross-team decisions on tooling and governance.
• Improve platform health metrics and developer experience.
• Mentor engineers and promote a culture of ownership.

Skills

Distributed systems

Leadership

Federated GraphQL

C# & TypeScript/JavaScript

API design

Cloud platforms

Kubernetes

SQL / data modeling

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related field

Tools

GraphQL tooling (Apollo Federation, HotChocolate)

REST APIs

Kubernetes

Monorepo tooling (Bazel, pnpm, webpack/Vite)

Job description

The Trade Desk is a global technology company delivering a leading independent platform for digital advertising. We are looking for a highly experienced technical leader to shape the partner-facing platform, combining distributed systems design with modern frontend and backend capabilities.

You will define architectural standards, guide cross‑team decisions, mentor engineers, and contribute to code while building scalable GraphQL/REST services, SDKs, and frontend components.