Warner Bros. Discovery
Advertising
SeniorStaff,SoftwareEngineering
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“Senior Staff, Software Engineering at Warner Bros. Discovery. Skills: High-Scale Distributed Systems, Platform Modernization, Technical Leadership. Design and deliver software platforms. Process billions of ad events daily”
What You'll Achieve.
Build systems that scale cleanly under extreme load; Reduce long-term complexity; Enable faster product iteration; Turn models and data into production-grade, revenue-impacting systems; Influence extends beyond direct ownership
Industry & Context.
Technical judgment; Proactive issue detection; Systemic fixes
What They're Looking For.
Must Have
12+ years of experience building and operating large-scale backend/distributed systems, Designing APIs and services with high availability and performance requirements, Hands-on expertise with AWS/GCP/Azure, Containerization/orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes), Building cloud-native services with security and cost controls, Deep knowledge of Kafka, Kinesis, or Pub/Sub, Event-driven architectures for powering low-latency ingestion, decisioning, and activation, Skilled in CI/CD, Automated testing, Observability, Incident management, Reliability practices (SLOs, on-call) for production grade systems
Nice to Have
PhD preferred for advanced expertise in distributed systems or statistical optimization, Familiarity with advertising workflows including forecasting, yield optimization, identity, and campaign execution, Demonstrated ability to partner with data scientists, product, and platform engineering, Mentoring junior engineers
What You'll Do.
Design and deliver software platforms
Process billions of ad events daily
Set technical standards
Drive modernization of legacy components
Ensure mission-critical capabilities are delivered reliably
Own design and evolution of large-scale systems
Architect low-latency
high-throughput services
Design streaming and batch data pipelines
Optimize systems across latency
Define and enforce SLOs/SLAs
Drive production excellence
Lead transformation of legacy AdTech systems
Decompose monolithic systems
Establish reusable platform capabilities
Drive cost efficiency
Bridge advanced data models and real-time systems
Partner with Data Science to productionize ML models
Design APIs and integrations
Ensure privacy-safe data usage
Continuously improve decisioning accuracy
Act as a technical anchor
Lead critical design reviews
Mentor engineers on distributed systems
Drive root cause analysis and systemic fixes
Establish and propagate best practices
How You'll Work.
Team & Collaboration
Partner with Data Science; Partner with product; Partner with platform engineering; Collaborate with global teams
Full Job Description
**_Welcome to Warner Bros. Discovery… the stuff dreams are made of._** **Who We Are…** When we say, “the stuff dreams are made of,” we’re not just referring to the world of wizards, dragons and superheroes, or even to the wonders of Planet Earth. Behind WBD’s vast portfolio of iconic content and beloved brands, are the _storytellers_ bringing our characters to life, the _creators_ bringing them to your living rooms and the _dreamers_ creating what’s next… From brilliant creatives, to technology trailblazers, across the globe, WBD offers career defining opportunities, thoughtfully curated benefits, and the tools to explore and grow into your best selves. Here you are supported, here you are celebrated, here you can thrive. Your New Role: The Senior Staff Software Engineer reports to the Sr Director, CALS Engineering and is accountable for designing and delivering software platforms and services that process billions of ad events daily across WBD’s global advertising ecosystem. This role sets technical standards for backend and distributed systems engineering, drives modernization of legacy components into modular, cloud-native services, and ensures mission-critical capabilities are delivered reliably, securely, and cost efficiently for monetization and decisioning. Your Role Accountabilities: High-Scale Distributed Systems & Event Processing • Own the design and evolution of large-scale, event-driven systems powering real-time and batch processing across multi-billion event pipelines. • Architect low-latency, high-throughput services for ad decisioning, targeting, and measurement • Design streaming and batch data pipelines with strong guarantees around correctness, ordering, and fault tolerance • Optimize systems across latency, throughput, cost, and reliability— making explicit trade-offs where needed • Define and enforce SLOs/SLAs; drive production excellence through deep observability and proactive issue detection Expectation: builds systems that scale cleanly und
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