The Trade Desk is a global technology company with a mission to create a better, more open internet for everyone through principled, intelligent advertising. Handling over 1 trillion queries per day, our platform operates at an unprecedented scale. We have also built something even stronger and more valuable: an award-winning culture based on trust, ownership, empathy, and collaboration. We value the unique experiences and perspectives that each person brings to The Trade Desk, and we are committed to fostering inclusive spaces where everyone can bring their authentic selves to work every day.
Do you have a passion for solving hard problems at scale? Are you eager to join a dynamic, globally- connected team where your contributions will make a meaningful difference in building a better media ecosystem? Come and see why Fortune magazine consistently ranks The Trade Desk among the best small- to medium-sized workplaces globally.
About OpenPath:
OpenPath provides a direct, transparent connection between The Trade Desk and leading premium publishers-enabling efficient, objective, and high-quality access to inventory for advertisers. By simplifying the programmatic supply chain and reducing intermediaries, OpenPath brings supply path transparency, cost efficiency, and improved visibility into each impression's value and source.
Objective:
OpenPath focuses on creating and managing direct integrations with publishers while providing a robust publisher platform. Unlike an SSP, The Trade Desk remains buy-side focused-we do not optimize publisher yield or manage direct deals. Our mission is to deliver transparency and competition that lead to better outcomes for advertisers.
Key Features:
Direct access to inventory from top publishers through The Trade Desk platform
Infrastructure designed to integrate with transparent demand solutions, including Prebid's open-source header bidding
Emphasis on supply path transparency, cost efficiency, and visibility into cost/value
A buy-side-only approach supporting competition, innovation, and objective decision-making
Benefits for Advertisers:
Fewer supply chain hops and greater efficiency
Objective evaluation of supply paths with no preferential treatment
Increased transparency into cost drivers, supply sources, and impression value
The Role:
As a Senior Software Engineer on the OpenPath team, you will serve as a key technical leader responsible for architecting and building the systems that power direct publisher integrations and the publisher platform. You will work on highly impactful greenfield projects that shape the industry's future-improving transparency, efficiency, and control across billions of impressions and dollars in programmatic spend.
What You'll Do:
Technical Leadership & Architecture:
Architect and design scalable, high-performance systems that enable direct publisher integrations and transparent supply paths
Lead platform infrastructure efforts, including components that support Prebid header bidding and publisher tooling
Drive key architectural decisions for greenfield codebases and next-generation services
Execution & Collaboration:
Partner closely with product managers, data scientists, client services, data partnerships, inventory teams, and FP&A to translate business needs into technical solutions
Develop and maintain the publisher platform that empowers publishers to manage their integrations
Drive system performance improvements to support large datasets (e.g., 100% avails, user data) with high availability and low latency
Leadership & Influence:
Mentor engineers across the team and elevate engineering practices
Champion an iterative, fail-fast culture-rapidly prototyping, learning, and evolving solutions
Set and uphold technical standards for distributed systems, reliability, and platform development
Technologies We Use:
Backend: C#,Scala, Go
Frontend: React, Redux, TypeScript, Puppeteer, Jest
Data: SQL, Spark
Databases: SQL Server, Vertica, Aerospike
Infrastructure: Docker, Kubernetes
Who You Are
Software Engineers own proven experience building and scaling large distributed systems
Strong architectural instincts and the ability to design systems for reliability, performance, and scale
A technical leader with experience mentoring engineers and leading cross-team initiatives
Deeply curious about the business and passionate about using technology to transform outcomes
Comfortable operating in ambiguity, iterating quickly, and pivoting when needed
Collaborative and energized by working across multiple teams and disciplines
Motivated by transparency, simplicity, and building principled systems
Experience with high-scale, real-time systems or platform development is a strong plus
Who Won't Enjoy Working on OpenPath
Engineers who want purely technical challenges without business @context
Anyone uncomfortable with failing fast, discarding ideas, or pivoting quickly
People who prefer rigid structures and slow-moving development cycles
Folks who take work too seriously and don't enjoy a fun, collaborative environment
Why OpenPath Is a Great Team
Massive business impact: Influence billions in ad spend and reshape how premium inventory is accessed
Extreme scale: Work with high-volume publisher integrations, 100% avails, user data, and real-time systems
Broad technical exposure: Touch multiple services across the company-from publisher integrations to demand-side infrastructure
Deep cross-functional engagement: Collaborate closely with engineering, product, data science, operations, and commercial teams
Greenfield development: Build several new services and platforms from the ground up
Innovation culture: Help define the future of transparent, efficient supply paths in programmatic advertising
Modern technology stack: Build cutting-edge services and lead the evolution toward agile architectures
Engineers who want purely technical challenges without business @context
Anyone uncomfortable with failing fast, discarding ideas, or pivoting quickly
People who prefer rigid structures and slow-moving development cycles
Folks who take work too seriously and don't enjoy a fun, collaborative environment
Why OpenPath Is a Great Team
Massive business impact: Influence billions in ad spend and reshape how premium inventory is accessed
Extreme scale: Work with high-volume publisher integrations, 100% avails, user data, and real-time systems
Broad technical exposure: Touch multiple services across the company-from publisher integrations to demand-side infrastructure
Deep cross-functional engagement: Collaborate closely with engineering, product, data science, operations, and commercial teams
Greenfield development: Build several new services and platforms from the ground up
Innovation culture: Help define the future of transparent, efficient supply paths in programmatic advertising
Modern technology stack: Build cutting-edge services and lead the evolution toward agile architectures
Position Impact
OpenPath is a major strategic initiative that introduces a transparent, efficient alternative supply path for advertisers. As a Software Engineer, you will shape the foundational infrastructure that connects advertisers directly to premium publishers-driving industry-wide transparency and improving outcomes at global scale.
Variety of technical opportunity is one of the best things about working at The Trade Desk as a software engineer which is why we do not expect you to know every technology we use when you start. What we care about is that you can learn quickly and find solutions to complex problems using the optimum tools for the job.What you know is less important than how well you learn a
