Netflix

Distributed Systems Engineer 5 - Core Ad Serving Platform

Netflix$388K — $500K+*
Consumer Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 7+ years of experience in software engineering or related field, with at least 4+ years specifically in the Ads domain.
  • Expertise in creating and managing highly-available, distributed systems operating at scale.
  • Hands-on experience with core ad server components like decisioning logic and frequency capping.
  • In-depth knowledge of advertising technology standards and practices.
  • Strong capability in designing scalable APIs and complex data models.

Responsibilities

  • Architect and maintain backend services for ad decision-making and policy enforcement.
  • Design robust APIs and data models to facilitate integration across the ad platform.
  • Optimize ad delivery while ensuring low-latency performance during high traffic periods.
  • Drive operational success through SLO-driven development and capacity planning.
  • Develop monitoring and diagnostics frameworks to ensure system reliability.
  • Leverage ad-tech knowledge to meet industry standards and business needs.

Benefits

  • Comprehensive health plans and mental health support.
  • 401(k) retirement plan with employer matching.
  • Stock option program for employees.
  • Paid time off (35 days annually for hourly employees, flexible for salaried).
  • Support for family-forming benefits and paid leave programs.
Full Job Description
We launched a new ad-supported tier in November 2022 and are building an in-house world-class ad tech ecosystem to offer our members more choices in consuming their content. Our new tier allows us to attract new members at a lower price point while also creating a compelling path for advertisers to reach deeply engaged audiences. Our Team The Ads Platform Engineering team is the heartbeat of our monetization engine. We are builders, not just architects. Our team is responsible for the mission-critical infrastructure that orchestrates ad decisioning, policy enforcement, and delivery across our global content ecosystem. We operate on a "context over control" philosophy, empowering you to make high-impact technical decisions that shape the future of our advertising technology. We don't just design systems; we ship production code that handles massive scale, ensuring a seamless, low-latency viewing experience for our members while delivering exceptional outcomes for advertisers. The Core Ad Serving Platform team designs and builds scalable, modular backend frameworks and libraries that serve as the foundation of ads platform. You will focus on creating resilient systems that power a wide range of ad products and features while ensuring high availability, low latency, and maintainability as the platform evolves. What Success Looks Like - Dynamic: You thrive in critically impactful environments where you maintain platform stability under high throughput. - Hands-on Ownership: You are a builder. You’re comfortable navigating complex distributed systems, identifying bottlenecks, and writing code to solve them—not just whiteboarding solutions. You own the full lifecycle of your services—from design and deployment to capacity modeling and incident response. - Contextual Decision Making: You possess the judgment to align technical tradeoffs with business goals, ensuring our ad serving infrastructure scales gracefully as we continue to grow. What You’ll Do - Architect and operate backend services for core ad decisioning: Design and build scalable, modular backend frameworks for targeting, frequency management, pacing, and policy enforcement. - Design APIs and data models: Create clean, scalable interfaces and data schemas that enable seamless interoperability across the Ad Platform ecosystem. - Optimize high-throughput serving: Build services that manage ad selection and delivery consistency, ensuring low-latency performance in high-traffic, distributed environments. - Drive operational excellence: Implement SLO-driven development and proactive capacity planning, and own the incident response lifecycle for the core serving stack. - Instrument platform reliability: Develop comprehensive diagnostics, logging, and telemetry frameworks to ensure deep observability into system health and reliability. - Maintain ad-tech domain expertise: Utilize deep knowledge of advertising concepts (publisher policies, frequency caps, targeting) to ensure the platform meets industry standards and business requirements. Skills & Experience We’re Seeking - 7+ years of experience, with at least 4+ years in the Ads domain. - Expertise in building and operating highly-available, distributed systems at massive scale. - Hands-on experience building core ad server components: decisioning logic, ad selection, pacing, ranking, scoring, and frequency capping. - Deep understanding of ad-tech ecosystem standards and business requirements (e.g., targeting, policy enforcement, and frequency management). - Proven ability to design scalable APIs and data models that support complex, multi-service ecosystems. - Strong communication skills with the ability to partner effectively with cross-functional product and engineering teams. Nice To Haves - Experience working in the CTV space and familiarity with its unique delivery constraints. - Expertise in high-throughput data processing systems and telemetry frameworks for large-scale production environments. - Familiarity with cloud-native infrastructure, deployment automation, and SLO-driven development. Generally, our compensation structure consists solely of an annual salary; we do not have bonuses. You choose each year how much of your compensation you want in salary versus stock options. To determine your personal top of market compensation, we rely on market indicators and consider your specific job family, background, skills, and experience to determine your compensation in the market range. The range for this role is $388,000.00 - $619,000.00. Netflix provides comprehensive benefits including Health Plans, Mental Health support, a 401(k) Retirement Plan with employer match, Stock Option Program, Disability Programs, Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts, Family-forming benefits, and Life and Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off. Full-time salaried employees are immediately entitled to flexible time off. See more details about our Benefits here.

About Netflix

Netflix, Inc. is an American media company founded on August 29, 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, and currently based in Los Gatos, California, with production offices and stages at the Los Angeles-based Hollywood studios (formerly old Warner Brothers studios) and the Albuquerque Studios (formerly ABQ studios). It operates an eponymous over-the-top subscription video on-demand service, which showcases acquired and original programming as well as third-party content licensed from other production companies and distributors. Netflix is also the first streaming media company to be a member of the Motion Picture Association.
Learn more about Netflix
Size
11,300 employees
Market Cap
$127.6 billion
Industry
Net Income
$2.7 billion
Founded
1997
5 Year Trend
+27.5%
Revenue
$24.9 billion
NASDAQ

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