Principal Software Engineer

Join Sovrn, a leading adtech company, as a Principal Software Engineer. In this backend-focused role, you will work on the systems that power our exchange, lead architectural decisions, establish AI engineering practices, and drive technical standards. You will have the opportunity to make a significant impact on our engineering organization and the adtech industry as a whole.

• Design and evolve backend systems that operate at exchange scale, leading architectural decisions across auction infrastructure, bid processing, traffic shaping, and supply-side integrations.
• Establish and champion AI engineering practices across the team, identifying high-leverage opportunities to apply AI in the adtech stack, and setting standards for evaluating and operating AI-powered systems in production.
• Drive technical standards, design reviews, and engineering best practices across a senior team, mentoring and leveling up engineers through code review, design collaboration, and hands-on guidance.
• We're looking for a Principal Software Engineer with deep roots in adtech infrastructure and a genuine conviction about what AI-native engineering looks like in practice
• Hands-on experience with LLM integration patterns: RAG, tool use, multi-step agentic workflows, prompt engineering, and evaluation frameworks
• Comfort driving technical decisions in ambiguous, fast-moving environments
• Strong distributed systems fundamentals: messaging, caching, service architecture, observability
• A point of view on where AI is and isn't the right tool — and the credibility to make that case
• Demonstrated experience leading AI or agentic engineering efforts in production environments — not just experimentation, but shipped, operated, and iterated on
• Experience building and operating systems at exchange scale — high QPS, strict latency budgets, fault tolerance
• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with a strong backend track record
• 5+ years working specifically in adtech infrastructure — SSP, DSP, exchange, or ad server environments
• Deep fluency in the programmatic ecosystem: OpenRTB, bid request/response flows, auction mechanics, supply path optimization, or similar
• We understand that no candidate is perfectly qualified for any job. Experience comes in different forms; many skills are transferable; and passion goes a long way. Even more important than your resume is a clear demonstration of accountability and the ability to thrive in a fluid and collaborative environment. We expect you to learn new things in this role and encourage you to apply if your experience is close to what we’re looking for