Staff Software Engineer - Custom Solutions

What we do

At The Trade Desk, we design and build custom solutions that extend our platform's capabilities, with a focus on quality, reusability, and customer success. From client facing applications and backend services to data science models, workflow automation, reports, and large-scale data workflows, we deliver end-to-end systems that drive advanced campaign optimization, actionable analytics, and robust data operations at global scale.

We are a small, high impact team that strategically enables advertisers to unlock advanced capabilities, we solve unique partner needs, shape technical patterns that benefit the wider platform. Whether it's enabling advanced bidding strategies, streamlining data pipelines, or creating bespoke reporting experiences, we build with quality and scale in mind.

We value a culture of collaboration, innovation, and learning. Here, engineers invent and simplify as they extend platform capabilities, striking the right balance between reusability and customization while partnering closely with clients and cross functional teams.

What you'll do :

This role is ideal for someone passionate about building innovative, data-driven solutions in the programmatic advertising space. You thrive in a high-scale, data-intensive environment where client needs are diverse, and you will play a key role in designing reusable patterns and standardized components that accelerate future solution delivery. If you're excited about enabling advertisers through tailored innovation and scalable platform extensions, we'd love to hear from you

In addition to the core responsibilities as Software Engineer, you will specifically :

• Drive architecture and design for end-to-end systems within Custom Solutions, influencing platform patterns and best practices across teams
• Develop custom APIs and backend services that integrate seamlessly with the core platform
• Optimize data storage, retrieval, and API performance for global-scale programmatic workloads
• Apply best practices in software engineering across the stack for scalability, maintainability, and resilience
• Create and maintain data processing workflows and automation solutions to support large-scale advertiser operations
• Collaborate with data scientists to integrate productionized models and algorithms into full-stack systems for advanced bidding and analytics
• Implement monitoring, logging, and observability across frontend and backend systems to maintain reliability and performance
• Design and build client-facing applications with responsive, intuitive UIs using frontend frameworks
• Identify opportunities to standardize patterns to accelerate future solution delivery

Who you are :

Our culture is much deeper than just having fun together (though we do that well, too). We take pride in our engineers being trust-builders, generous givers, scrappy problem solvers, and gritty pursuers of excellence. You do not have to meet all the requirements below, but we believe that people who meet most of them will have a higher likelihood of succeeding in this role :

A variety of technical opportunities 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 and innovate. We are not seeking engineers who know all the answers; we need engineers who can invent answers no one has thought of yet and find answers to the questions yet to be asked.

CO, CA, IL, NY, WA, and Washington DC residents only : In accordance with CO, CA, IL, NY, WA, and Washington DC law, the range provided is The Trade Desk's reasonable estimate of the base compensation for this role. The actual amount may differ based on non-discriminatory factors such as experience, knowledge, skills, abilities, and location. All employees may be eligible to become The Trade Desk shareholders through eligibility for stock-based compensation grants, which are awarded to employees based on company and individual performance. The Trade Desk also offers other compensation depending on the role such as sales-based incentives and commissions. Plus, expected benefits for this role include comprehensive healthcare (medical, dental, and vision) with premiums paid in full for employees and dependents, retirement benefits such as a 401k plan and company match, short and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, well-being benefits, reimbursement for certain tuition expenses, parental leave, sick time of 1 hour per 30 hours worked, vacation time for full-time employees up to 120 hours thru the first year and 160 hours thereafter, and around 13 paid holidays per year. Employees can also purchase The Trade Desk stock at a discount through The Trade Desk's Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

The Trade Desk also offers a competitive benefits package. Click here to learn more.

Note : Interns are not eligible for variable incentive awards such as stock-based compensation, retirement plan, vacation, tuition reimbursement or parental leave

At the Trade Desk, Base Salary is one part of our competitive total compensation and benefits package and is determined using a salary range. The base salary range for this role is

$137,300 — $251,800 USD

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, The Trade Desk is committed to creating an inclusive hiring experience where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.

Please reach out to us at accommodations@thetradedesk.com to request an accommodation or discuss any accessibility needs you may require to access our Company Website or navigate any part of the hiring process.

When you contact us, please include your preferred contact details and specify the nature of your accommodation request or questions. Any information you share will be handled confidentially and will not impact our hiring decisions.