Comcast · 1 month ago
Principal Software Engineer 6 - (Backend & Agentic Execution Platform)
Chicago, IL
Full-time
Onsite
Lead/Staff
$180K/yr - $271K/yr
15+ years expComcast's FreeWheel is seeking a Principal Engineer for their Programmatic Demand team to define and build the next evolution of their DSP-as-a-service platform. The role involves setting technical direction, delivering core systems, and establishing patterns for the Buyer Cloud and broader Demand platform.
InternetTelecommunicationsTVVideoWeb Hosting
Responsibilities
Collaborates with project stakeholders to identify product and technical requirements. Conducts analysis to determine integration needs
Designs and oversees new software and web applications, supports applications under development and customizes current applications. Develops software update processes for existing applications. Assists and oversees in the roll-out of software releases
Trains and mentors software development engineers on internally developed software applications and software development best practices
Oversees the researching, writing and editing of documentation and technical requirements, including software designs evaluation plans, test results, technical manuals and formal recommendations and reports
Keeps current with technological developments within the industry. Monitors and evaluates competitive applications and products. Reviews literature, patents and current practices relevant to the solution of assigned projects
Provides technical leadership throughout the design process and provides guidance with regards to practices, procedures and techniques. Serves as a guide and mentor for junior level Software Development Engineers
Assists in tracking; provides and evaluates performance metrics. Ensures team delivers software on time, to specification and within budget
Works with Quality Assurance team to determine if applications fit specification and technical requirements. Tests and evaluates systems, subsystems and components
Leads project planning, resourcing, requirement analyzing and defining, detailed designing and deployment of feature or system
Presents and defends architectural, design and technical choices to internal and external audiences
Consistent exercise of independent judgment and discretion in matters of significance
Regular, consistent and punctual attendance. Must be able to work nights and weekends, variable schedule(s) and overtime as necessary
Other duties and responsibilities as assigned
Define the technical vision for Buyer Cloud’s next-generation backend, including how we expose platform capabilities through APIs and MCP-based tool surfaces
Lead architecture and design for large-scale, distributed systems with a focus on low latency, high throughput, and operational simplicity
Establish durable platform patterns for: Multi-tenant isolation and policy enforcement, Safe rollout strategies (feature flags, canaries, progressive delivery), Backward compatibility and API versioning for internal and external consumers
Design and implement systems that allow AI agents to safely take actions (e.g., configuration changes, diagnostics, workflow execution) with: Clear authorization boundaries, Auditing and traceability, Rate limiting and cost controls, Guardrails to prevent unsafe or unintended actions
Partner with data, ML, and product stakeholders to identify 'high leverage' agent use cases in a DSP-as-a-service environment (e.g., troubleshooting, campaign setup assistance, forecasting/insight workflows, operational automation)
Raise the bar on SLO-driven reliability and operational practices (incident response, postmortems, automation, on-call health)
Champion best-in-class observability: metrics, tracing, structured logging, and actionable alerting
Drive performance engineering across critical paths (bidding/decisioning adjacent services, pacing, reporting pipelines, and platform APIs)
Mentor and grow senior engineers and emerging technical leaders
Set and model expectations for design docs, decision logs, code review quality, and pragmatic engineering judgment
Collaborate across teams to align roadmaps and unblock delivery
Qualification
Required
Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience
15+ years building and operating scalable, distributed systems; ad tech / media / programmatic experience strongly preferred
Deep expertise in system design and technical architecture, including ownership of complex systems in production
Strong coding ability in one or more of: Python, Java, Go, C++ (performance, concurrency, and distributed computing)
Experience building and operating cloud-native services on AWS (or equivalent) including infrastructure-as-code
Demonstrated ability to own and manage technical backlogs, influence prioritization, and drive execution across multiple teams
Preferred
Experience designing 'tooling' APIs intended for automation (human and machine clients), including careful consideration of: Contracts and stability, Permissions and policy, Auditing and compliance, Failure modes and safe retries
Familiarity with modern AI/agent patterns (tool calling, RAG, evaluation/monitoring), and a point of view on where agentic systems will and will not work in production
Experience (or strong interest) in standards and ecosystems like MCP, and how they change service boundaries and platform ergonomics
Benefits
Best-in-class Benefits
Company
Comcast
Comcast is a media and technology company that provides broadband internet, mobile services, and entertainment platforms. It is a sub-organization of SkyShowtime.
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
Comcast 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 (705)
2024 (561)
2023 (624)
2022 (750)
2021 (588)
2020 (583)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$4.92BKey Investors
California Public Utilities CommissionMassachussetts Broadband InstituteMaine Connectivity Authority
2025-11-13Grant· $3.2M
2024-07-02Grant· $2.69M
2023-04-24Grant· $0.28M
Leadership Team
Neil Smit
President and Chief Executive Officer
Candy Lawson
SVP, Chief Compliance Officer and Senior Deputy General Counsel
Recent News
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2026-02-04
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