TripleLift is hiring a Senior Software Engineer for Core RTB Engineering to develop and maintain the real-time bidding platform processing over a trillion ad transactions monthly. The role involves working on backend Java services with sub-100ms latency across multiple AWS regions. Responsibilities include designing high-throughput bidding and auction services, ensuring reliability and observability, writing well-tested code, using AI coding assistants responsibly, researching AI/ML optimizations, collaborating globally, and mentoring engineers. Requirements include a Bachelor's degree or equivalent, 3+ years backend engineering experience with Java, experience with large-scale network systems, familiarity with key-value stores and messaging systems, distributed systems design knowledge, AWS production experience, and fluency with AI coding tools. Preferred skills include Netty, Apache Spark, Snowflake, Red Panda, Aerospike, Couchbase, ad tech protocols (OpenRTB, VAST), ML model integration, LLM/agent systems, computer vision, JVM performance tuning, and leadership experience.
What you'll do
Own a mission-critical Java codebase that powers TripleLift’s Exchange — executing billions of times a day under sub-100-millisecond latency budgets and across multiple AWS regions and data centers
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Design, build, and evolve high-throughput services for bidding logic, auction mechanics, traffic shaping, and creative/image processing, with a focus on reliability, observability, and cost efficiency
Write maintainable, well-tested code; instrument production systems with meaningful metrics, traces, and alerts; and take end-to-end ownership of the health of the services you ship
Use modern AI coding assistants (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor) as a routine part of your workflow — leveraging them to accelerate development, raise code quality, and explore design alternatives, while applying strong engineering judgment to validate and own every line that reaches production
Research and evaluate emerging technologies, including AI/ML-driven optimizations and agentic capabilities relevant to bidding and traffic decisions, and translate promising ideas into production-quality systems
Partner with engineers across our NYC and Zurich teams to maintain shared standards in architecture, code review, observability, and incident response, operating as one consistent global Core RTB engineering function
Mentor and coach other engineers on Java, distributed systems best practices, and the effective and responsible use of AI tooling, raising the bar across the team
Requirements
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a related technical field, or equivalent professional experience
3+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong focus on backend services running in production at scale
Demonstrated experience building high-performance APIs and services in Java
Track record of working on large-scale, network-heavy systems handling billions of HTTP requests per day under strict latency requirements
Familiarity with in-memory key-value stores (e.g., Memcache, Redis) and messaging systems (e.g., Apache Kafka, RabbitMQ)
Solid grasp of distributed systems design patterns and their trade-offs, including concurrency, caching, backpressure, fault tolerance, and observability
Production experience operating services across multiple AWS regions or comparable cloud environments
Working fluency with modern AI coding assistants (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor) and a thoughtful point of view on where AI tooling accelerates work and where human judgment must lead
Strong written communication and comfort collaboration skills
