Lead Staff Software Engineer

Job Description

The Trade Desk is a global technology company and the world’s leading independent platform for digital advertising. Our Software Engineers are end-to-end owners who will participate in all aspects of designing, building, and delivering data-focused products for our stakeholders. You will have the opportunity to work on large-scale distributed systems, petabyte-scale data challenges, machine learning, advanced visualizations, and interactive user interfaces. Our system performs all day, every day serving global traffic, with a focus on quality at scale in an agile environment. The SCORE team owns the backend health, performance, and reliability of a core part of The Trade Desk's platform, including APIs and systems for scheduled reports and near-real-time campaign performance metrics. Our scope is also growing into the infrastructure behind AI agents. This role is based in our London office. **What you'll do:** Design, build, and operate backend systems supporting a high-traffic web and data platform as a Staff-level technical authority. Act as a technical reviewer and mentor, driving technical direction on ambiguous, cross-cutting problems. Partner with adjacent teams and platform governance groups. This role is a deliberate growth track toward people management, starting with direct management of a senior engineer and growing into leading a larger engineering team in London. You will run regular 1:1s, own performance and growth conversations, and participate in hiring.

Skills Required

• Backend Systems
• Web Platform
• Data Platform
• C#
• .NET
• SQL
• GraphQL
• REST APIs
• Reporting Systems
• AI Systems
• Agentic Systems
• Technical Leadership
• People Management
• Distributed Systems
• Cloud
• Physical Data Centers
• Petabyte-scale Data
• Machine Learning
• Advanced Visualizations
• Interactive User Interfaces
• Operational Health
• System Modernization
• Quality Standards