Zeta Global · 3 days ago
Staff Backend Engineer
New York, United States
Full-time
Hybrid
Lead/Staff
$300K/yr - $375K/yr
8+ years expZeta Global is an AI-Powered Marketing Cloud that utilizes advanced artificial intelligence to enhance marketing efficiency. The Staff Backend Engineer will design, build, and optimize backend systems for a low-latency ad platform, ensuring high performance and reliability while collaborating with cross-functional teams.
AdvertisingAnalyticsInformation ServicesMarketing
Hiring Manager
Danielle Doyle, MSHRM
Responsibilities
Lead the design and implementation of scalable, high-performance backend services, including microservices and APIs, that can efficiently handle large volumes of requests with low latency
Develop and maintain streaming data pipelines and event-driven systems to process and analyze continuous data flows in real time (e.g., using Apache Kafka)
Ensure the backend systems are highly performant, resilient, and stable under heavy load
Implement robust fault-tolerance mechanisms and optimize for low-latency response times in a high-concurrency environment
Leverage observability best practices (comprehensive monitoring, logging, and tracing) to enable engineers to quickly analyze system behavior and take proactive measures to boost performance and reliability
Work closely with cross-functional teams – including Product, Data Science, DevOps, and Frontend – to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions
Facilitate effective communication and collaborative problem-solving to deliver new features and improvements that align with our product roadmap
Provide technical leadership within the engineering team without direct managerial duties
Guide and mentor junior engineers through code reviews, design discussions, and best practice adoption, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement
Stay abreast of emerging technologies and industry trends (e.g. new AWS services, streaming frameworks, database technologies) and evaluate their potential benefit to our platform
Contribute to the technical roadmap, making build-vs-buy recommendations and driving innovation to keep our systems ahead of the curve
Qualification
Required
8+ years of software engineering experience building backend systems, with 3+ years in a senior or lead role (e.g. Staff Engineer, Principal Engineer) in the AdTech or a similar high-volume, low-latency domain
Proven track record in designing and building high-throughput, low-latency distributed systems that operate at scale (e.g. handling thousands of requests per second or more)
Expertise in microservices architecture and distributed system design, including experience decomposing monoliths or building greenfield microservices with well-defined APIs
Proficiency in Java and Go for backend development, and experience with Python for scripting, automation, or data processing tasks
Hands-on experience with streaming data technologies and event-driven frameworks, such as Apache Kafka (or AWS Kinesis), and possibly stream processing frameworks (Spark Streaming, Flink, or similar, experience with Apache Kafka is highly desired)
Strong experience with cloud platforms (AWS preferred) and deploying services in a cloud-native environment. Familiarity with AWS components like EC2, S3, Lambda, SNS/SQS, etc., and ability to design cost-effective, performant cloud architectures
Experience with both SQL and NoSQL databases for high-volume applications. Comfortable with technologies like PostgreSQL/MySQL as well as key-value or wide-column stores (e.g. DynamoDB, Cassandra, Redis) for caching and fast lookups
Familiarity with containerization and orchestration tools (Docker, Kubernetes) and CI/CD pipelines to build and deploy microservices reliably
Deep understanding of system observability and monitoring – experience instrumenting applications and using monitoring/logging tools to ensure visibility into system performance (e.g. Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack or similar)
Excellent problem-solving and communication skills. Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to cross-functional team members and stakeholders. Proven collaboration skills in an agile development environment
Preferred
Domain Expertise: Deep knowledge of the programmatic advertising ecosystem, including how Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs), Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs), ad exchanges, and real-time bidding (RTB) work together. Prior experience building or optimizing components of a DSP or ad server is a strong plus
High-Scale Data Processing: Experience designing systems that operate at extreme scale, such as real-time auction systems or high-frequency trading platforms, and optimizing algorithms for latency and throughput (e.g. understanding of auction theory or bidding optimization strategies)
Data Pipelines & Analytics: Familiarity with big data processing and analytics pipelines (Spark, Hadoop, or columnar data stores) for batch and streaming workloads. Experience with data warehousing or real-time analytics databases (e.g. Druid, ClickHouse) is a plus
Advanced Performance Tuning: Demonstrated experience in performance profiling and optimization (e.g. JVM tuning, concurrency, GC optimization, network I/O) in large-scale Java or Go applications
Leadership in the Tech Community: A track record of contributing to open-source projects, technical publications, or speaking at industry conferences. Keeping on top of emerging trends and sharing knowledge both inside and outside the organization
Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (Master's or Ph.D. a plus), with strong foundations in algorithms and data structures
Benefits
Unlimited PTO
Excellent medical, dental, and vision coverage
Employee Equity
Employee Discounts, Virtual Wellness Classes, and Pet Insurance
Company
Zeta Global
Zeta offers technology and marketing services to help brands acquire, engage, and retain customers.
1001-5000 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Zeta Global has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (20)
2024 (17)
2023 (11)
2022 (6)
2021 (8)
2020 (16)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$1.46BKey Investors
BofA Securities
2024-09-04Post Ipo Secondary· $105.26M
2024-09-04Post Ipo Equity· $204.94M
2024-09-03Post Ipo Debt· $550M
Leadership Team
David Steinberg
CEO, Co-Founder, and Chairman of the Board
Christian Monberg
Chief Technology Officer
Recent News
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2026-01-07
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2026-01-07
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