Principal Software Engineer, Demand Platform, Level 7

Snap Inc is a technology company. We believe the camera presents the greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. Snap contributes to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. The Company’s three core products are Snapchat, a visual messaging app that enhances your relationships with friends, family, and the world; Lens Studio, an augmented reality platform that powers AR across Snapchat and other services; and its AR glasses, Spectacles.

Snap Engineering teams build fun and technically sophisticated products that reach hundreds of millions of Snapchatters around the world, every day. We’re deeply committed to the well-being of everyone in our global community, which is why our values are at the root of everything we do. We move fast, with precision, and always execute with privacy at the forefront.

We’re looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join the Ads team at Snap.

What you’ll do:

• Take the lead in conceiving, designing, and developing new 0 to 1 advertising products. This involves identifying market gaps, understanding emerging trends, and translating innovative concepts into tangible solutions that empower our advertisers.

• Collaborate extensively with cross-functional teams, including product management, sales, engineering, and data science, to gather and comprehend the evolving needs and requirements of our advertisers. Translate these insights into well-defined technical specifications and innovative solutions that not only address advertiser challenges but also deliver substantial value to their campaigns and generate significant revenue growth for our business.

• Champion the entire lifecycle of new ad product development, from initial ideation and conceptualization to the final delivery of robust and scalable solutions. This encompasses rigorous evaluation of technical trade-offs, meticulous planning, agile execution, and a commitment to building innovative products and services that redefine the advertising landscape.

• Advocate for and apply best practices when it comes to availability, scalability, operational excellence, and cost management

• Provide technical direction that influences the entire company

• Work across teams to understand product requirements, evaluate trade-offs, and deliver the solutions needed to support Snap’s performance advertising suite 

• Technical influence that spans the entire company

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

• Ads domain experience

• Deep technical expertise with product sensibility, focusing on what we build, how we build it, and how we make it perform better

• Proven track record of operating highly-available systems at scale

• Ability to proactively learn new concepts and technology and apply them at work

• Skilled at solving ambiguous problems

• Strong collaboration and mentorship skills

• Client side and full stack experience preferred

Minimum Qualifications: 

• 10+ years of post-Bachelor’s software development experience; or a Master’s degree in a technical field + 9+ year of post-grad software development experience; or a PhD in a related technical field + 6+ years of post-grad software development experience

• 2+ years of experience with technical leadership or acting as the domain-expert to a technical organization

• Experience in technical leadership/ownership and setting technical direction for engineering projects

• Experience architecting, designing, and developing distributed systems

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior work in consumer-facing platforms or marketplaces where user experience and monetization intersect.

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