Principal Software Engineer, Ads

Details

Reddit is a community of communities, home to authentic conversations and large-scale user engagement. The Ads Engineering organization builds the technology that connects millions of users with brands through effective, non-intrusive advertising experiences. This role reports to the Senior Director of Engineering and spans a diverse ads engineering portfolio including Ad Formats, Ads Manager, Ads Safety, and Solutions Engineering. The position is remote within the United States.

Responsibilities

• Technical strategy: Partner across Consumer Product, Core Infrastructure, and Trust & Safety to align technical roadmaps and identify company-level problems to drive cross-organizational solutions.
• Cross-domain architecture: Architect systems that span the entire Reddit stack and define how Reddit builds ads products for the next 3–5 years.
• Organizational transformation: Identify and resolve technical and organizational bottlenecks (for example legacy debt, slow CI/CD, siloed teams, unclear contracts) and drive systemic change.
• Mentorship: Mentor and develop Staff (L6) and Senior (L5) engineers, raising engineering standards across the organization.
• Full-stack ownership: Own end-to-end technical solutions (frontend and backend), ensuring API designs enable performant UIs and data models support future product flexibility.

Requirements / Qualifications

• Product-centric technologist: Make technical trade-offs based on user value and business velocity.
• Organizational influencer: Proven track record solving problems that require both code changes and people/process changes; able to influence senior leadership.
• Ads domain expertise: Understanding of the ad tech ecosystem including auctions, attribution, privacy (ATT / SKAdNetwork), brand safety, and campaign management.
• Technical leadership at scale: Experience driving architecture and standards across multiple teams and mentoring senior engineers.

Benefits

• Comprehensive healthcare benefits and income replacement programs
• 401(k) with employer match
• Global benefit programs (workspace, professional development, caregiving support)
• Family planning support and gender-affirming care
• Mental health & coaching benefits
• Flexible vacation & paid volunteer time off
• Generous paid parental leave

Pay Transparency

• Base pay range (U.S.): $260,800 - $365,100 USD
• In addition to base salary, eligible roles may receive equity (RSUs) and, depending on position, commission. Final offers are determined by multiple factors including skills and experience.

Additional Notes

• In select roles and locations, interviews may be recorded, transcribed and summarized by AI; candidates can opt out prior to interviews.
• The posting describes the role as Principal (L7) and highlights responsibilities for architecture, cross-team influence, and mentoring senior engineers.