Senior Software EngineerNew York, NY |
Full TimeCOMPENSATION RANGE: 210,000.00 - 250,000.00
We are building the next generation of identity resolution to support performance CTV, mobile user acquisition, app-to-web, CTV-to-web. We are hiring a Senior Software Engineer within the Data Engineering team to define and build the identity graph foundations that connect raw identifiers, devices, people, and households into reliable, production-grade identity signals.
This role sits close to Data Engineering, Data Quality, Machine Learning, and Product. The initial focus is to understand Smadex's current pipelines and business needs, identify gaps, and build an incremental roadmap that delivers measurable value quickly while moving toward a scalable long-term identity architecture.
Why this role mattersIdentity is becoming a core capability for Smadex's next stage of growth:
- CTV performance and attribution: Improve household-level understanding so Smadex can better connect CTV exposure to downstream mobile and web outcomes.
- Mobile UA resilience: Strengthen targeting and modeling as deterministic device ID coverage continues to decline, especially on iOS.
- Cross-channel targeting: Enable a future where CTV, mobile, app-to-web, and CTV-to-web campaigns can be optimized through a unified identity layer.
- Customer data onboarding: Support use cases where customers provide hashed emails, RAMP IDs, UID2s, first-party data, or other identifiers for lookalike modeling, retargeting, and deeper integrations.
- Incrementality narrative: Help Smadex explain and measure the value of CTV and cross-channel campaigns beyond siloed attribution metrics.
Key responsibilitiesIdentity strategy and roadmap- Define Smadex's identity resolution roadmap across short-, medium-, and long-term horizons.
- Translate high-level business needs into concrete data engineering and ML requirements.
- Build an incremental delivery plan that avoids a long "big bang" approach and validates value through clear checkpoints.
- Partner with Product to prioritize identity use cases across CTV, mobile UA, app-to-web, CTV-to-web.
- Help determine where third-party identifiers such as RAMP IDs, UID2, hashed emails, and other provider signals should fit into Smadex's identity strategy.
Identity graph architecture- Design and build identity graph components that map from raw identifiers to device, person, and household-level entities.
- Develop approaches for resolving noisy or inconsistent identifiers from SSPs, suppliers, devices, cookies, IP signals, and other sources.
- Build simple proof-of-concept pipelines quickly, then iterate toward more sophisticated graph logic.
- Use behavioral patterns, activity signals, IP neighborhoods, and clustering methods to determine which identifiers likely belong together.
- Ensure the architecture can support both ML model features and functional product use cases.
Data engineering and data quality- Work inside the Data Engineering organization to align identity work with feature engineering and data quality initiatives.
- Collaborate with data engineers to define the upstream features and raw data needed for identity resolution.
- Anticipate data needs 3-4 months ahead to reduce repeated back-and-forth with upstream teams.
- Partner with the Data Quality function to validate ingestion quality, identifier consistency, provider reliability, and graph stability.
- Build pipelines that are production-ready, observable, scalable, and maintainable.
ML and product enablement- Collaborate with ML teams to turn identity outputs into useful model features.
- Evaluate whether identity-derived features improve targeting, attribution, incrementality, and model performance.
- Support product and customer-facing initiatives that require identity, even when the immediate ML lift is uncertain.
- Help define success metrics across both performance impact and product enablement.
- Provide technical guidance for experimentation, offline evaluation, and online testing of identity-based approaches.
What success looks like in the first 90 days- Deeply understand Smadex's business model, current identity capabilities, data pipelines, ML workflows, and team structure.
- Identify the main technical, organizational, and data quality gaps for building identity resolution at Smadex.
- Define a practical short-term and long-term roadmap for identity under the Data Engineering team.
- Propose the first version of an identity framework or proof-of-concept pipeline.
- Clarify what data sources, features, third-party identifiers, and customer data integrations are needed.
- Recommend whether additional roles or skills are required to scale the identity function.
- Establish a close working model with Data Engineering, Data Quality, ML, and Product.
Ideal candidate profileWe are looking for someone who has built or led identity, graph, data platform, or large-scale data systems in an ad tech, martech, marketplace, or similarly complex data environment.
The ideal candidate combines:
- Strong technical depth in data engineering, identity resolution, graph systems, or large-scale distributed data processing.
- Practical experience building production data pipelines and iterating from proof-of-concept to scalable architecture.
- Understanding of probabilistic and deterministic identity signals, device IDs, cookies, IP-based signals, hashed emails, household IDs, or similar identifier systems.
- Ability to reason about third-party identity providers and data rights, including differences by geography and implementation quality.
- Experience partnering with ML teams to create model-ready features from complex data.
- Product and business orientation: able to connect technical identity work to customer value, campaign performance, attribution, and incrementality.
Required experience- 7+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, ML infrastructure, identity systems, ad tech, or related fields.
- Experience designing and operating large-scale data pipelines using technologies such as Spark, Airflow, distributed processing frameworks, or equivalent systems.
- Strong understanding of data modeling, data quality, pipeline reliability, observability, and production operations.
- Experience working with cross-functional teams across Engineering, ML, Product, and business stakeholders.
- Demonstrated ability to lead technical initiatives from ambiguous problem statements to delivered systems.
- Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Preferred experience- Experience with identity graphs, household graphs, device graphs, customer data onboarding, or cross-device resolution.
- Experience in DSPs, ad tech, mobile measurement, CTV, performance marketing, or real-time bidding systems.
- Familiarity with identifiers such as IDFA, GAID, cookies, IP-derived signals, RAMP IDs, UID2, hashed emails, or first-party customer data.
- Experience evaluating third-party data providers or identity providers.
- Experience creating ML features from identity, behavioral, event-level, or user-level data.
- Experience hiring, mentoring, or building a small team from scratch.
- Experience improving developer productivity through CI/CD, data tooling, Airflow, Spark, or workflow improvements.
Key traits- Pragmatic builder: Can start with a simple pipeline, ship quickly, and improve iteratively.
- Strategic thinker: Keeps the long-term architecture in mind while delivering short-term value.
- Data quality obsessed: Understands that identity resolution depends on trustworthy upstream data.
- Cross-functional partner: Works naturally with ML, Product, Data Engineering, and commercial teams.
- Business-oriented: Connects graph quality to campaign outcomes, customer needs, and strategic differentiation.
- Collaborative leader: Creates space for debate, encourages input from all seniority levels, and builds strong teams.
- Comfortable with ambiguity: Excited to build structure in a new, high-impact area.
Reporting and team contextThis role sits under the Data Engineering team, within the broader ML organization. The Identity Lead will work closely with:
- Data Engineering, responsible for feature engineering and data pipelines.
- Data Quality, focused on ingestion quality, validation, and reliability.
- ML teams, responsible for turning identity signals into model improvements.
- Product, responsible for identity, incrementality, and related roadmap priorities.
- Commercial and customer-facing teams, where identity enables CTV, cross-channel, onboarding, and attribution narratives.
POSITION TYPE/EXPECTED HOURS OF WORKThis is a Full Time position. Actual schedule and hours may vary.
SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITYReports directly to Smadex CDO
Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.
