Snap
Senior Principal Software Engineer, Ads Quality
$284K–$500K
Palo Alto, California +1 · Principal · Full-time · Posted Oct 7, 2026
- Location
- Palo Alto, California
Bellevue, Washington - Experience
- 10+ years of software development, with the stated degree-based alternatives; 3+ years of technical leadership or domain expertise.
- Education
- Bachelor’s degree in a technical field such as computer science, mathematics, or statistics, or equivalent practical experience.
About the job
Leads the technical strategy and architecture for Snap’s Ads Marketplace, developing systems that optimize ad bidding, auctions, inventory, delivery, and reranking while balancing advertiser outcomes, revenue, and user experience.
What you'll do
- Set marketplace technical direction and build scalable bidding, pacing, auction, allocation, and ad optimization systems.
- Lead cross-team initiatives from architecture through production, establishing evaluation and experimentation methods and improving reliability, latency, scalability, and cost efficiency.
- Mentor senior engineers and technical leaders, and develop shared technical foundations.
What they ask for
- Bachelor’s degree in a technical field or equivalent practical experience.
- 10+ years of post-Bachelor’s software development experience; or a Master’s degree in a technical field and 10+ years of post-graduate experience; or a PhD in a related technical field and 7+ years of post-graduate experience.
- 3+ years providing technical leadership or serving as a domain expert for a technical organization.
- Experience leading multi-team engineering initiatives and architecting, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems.
Nice to have
- Experience applying machine learning, constrained optimization, control theory, or online learning to marketplace decisions.
- Experience in ad marketplace optimization, auction theory, ad reranking, or marketplace experimentation.
Pay
$334,000-$500,000 annually USD, base salary; $317,000-$475,000 annually USD, base salary; $284,000-$425,000 annually USD, base salary
Tools
distributed systems, machine learning
AI focus
Preferred experience includes applying machine learning to budget allocation and real-time marketplace decisions.
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative