Software Engineer 5 - Ads Engineering

At Netflix, our mission is to entertain the world. Together, we are writing the next episode - pushing the boundaries of storytelling, global fandom and making the unimaginable a reality. We are a dream team obsessed with the uncomfortable excitement of discovering what happens when you merge creativity, intuition and cutting-edge technology. Come be a part of what’s next.

We launched a new ad-supported tier in November 2022 and are building an in-house world-class ad tech ecosystem to offer our members more choices in consuming their content. Our new tier allows us to attract new members at a lower price point while also creating a compelling path for advertisers to reach deeply engaged audiences.

Our Team

The Ads Engineering team at Netflix is dedicated to creating a world-class advertising ecosystem that drives our advertising business. This team's mission is to develop advanced technology that ensures exceptional experiences for both our members and advertisers. Our responsibilities encompass a broad spectrum of products, ranging from sales and media planning to optimizing advertiser outcomes and execution. This includes inventory and order management, campaign execution, ad serving, audience and identity management, measurement, reporting, and finance.

We use several Netflix investments and innovations - a unique mix of client and server-side ad insertions, state-of-the-art content delivery systems, ad encoding recipes, content understanding, and metadata, etc. We deliver ads in a manner that’s thoughtful of our member’s viewing experience and drive great outcomes for advertisers. We also ensure that advertiser brand safety is ensured during serving so that members only see the most appropriate ads for them.

Our team is faced with the enormous ambitions of building highly performant advertising systems and delivering high impact to our business by monetizing our incredible slate of content. As one of the newest entrants in the Connected TV advertising space that’s rapidly growing, we seek to build unique value propositions that help us differentiate us and become a market leader in record time. Our roles come with expectations of delivering in a rapid clip, comfort with lofty goals and big ambitions, the visibility that comes with strategic initiatives, and responsibility and an appetite to operate like a startup within an established company.

We are looking for engineers to join us on this journey, to be a part of some exciting initiatives, and the talented teams who work on realizing our ambitious vision.

Skills & experience we’re seeking:

• Well grounded domain experience in any of the following areas: Ad Serving, Ads Identity & Audiences, Ads Creatives, Inventory & Forecasting, Campaign Management, Media Planning, Measurement, Reporting, or Ads Finance.

• General understanding of the advertising marketplace and landscape. 

• Worked closely with ad operations to enable campaign setup, targeting, reporting and advertiser needs. 

• Developed many cloud based applications and comfortable with modern programming languages (preferably object oriented),

• Familiar with A/B testing and experimentation.

• Have solid experience in setting technical directions for engineering projects, making architectural decisions, and influencing partner and cross-functional teams.

Nice to haves:

• Contributed to an ads industry technology standard (e.g VAST, OpenRTB) or worked on an industry consortium effort, working group etc.

• Familiarity with legal compliance and changing landscape of ads regulations around the world.

• Experience working in the CTV space and knowledge of it’s unique constraints

Spotlight on Ads Engineering Teams:

The Ad Supply team manages the policies and technical integrations for third-party ad supply. While Netflix has traditionally licensed content, we're exploring this alternative funding model. The team solves complex challenges, such as determining how both Netflix and the third-party partner can sell ad inventory for the same content without conflict. They establish clear rules for inventory sharing, campaign setup, and system configurations to ensure consistency and fairness.

The Ads Measurement team builds systems that enable advertisers on Netflix to quantify campaign outcomes. Leveraging a blend of Netflix innovations and both first-party and third-party solutions, we deliver ads that respect the viewing experience while driving impactful results for advertisers. Our tools empower advertisers to effectively measure and analyze these outcomes.

The Ads Identity and Audience team is dedicated to delivering a relevant and engaging advertising experience while prioritizing consumer privacy. Our mission is to maintain precise subscriber identities to ensure that ads are not only engaging but also respectful of consumer privacy choices and regional regulations. We maintain a high-quality Identity Graph, which is used for various purposes, including respecting privacy choices and regulations, audience onboarding, targeting, measurement, and reporting.

The Ads Creatives & Policy team at Netflix is at the forefront of developing innovative solutions that enhance the ad experience for both viewers and advertisers. We are responsible for managing the lifecycle of ad creatives, ensuring compliance with policies, and leveraging cutting-edge technology to optimize ad delivery. Joining our team means being part of a dynamic environment where your contributions directly impact the viewing experience of millions worldwide.

The Ads Media Planning team is at the heart of designing and delivering state-of-the-art media planning solutions that power Netflix’s advertising business. We are developing innovative, in-house ad tech systems that enable advertisers and internal partners to efficiently plan, allocate, and optimize media investments across Netflix’s platform. Our technology translates advertiser objectives into actionable media plans, ensuring seamless integration, automation, optimization, compliance, and management of media strategies at scale. We work closely with cross-functional teams to deliver robust media planning capabilities that serve our advertisers, members, and Netflix’s broader business goals.

The Live Ads Management team is driving one of Netflix’s most exciting frontiers — bringing advertising to Live Events. We’re building the intelligence that powers ad experiences during some of Netflix’s biggest real-time moments, from live sports to global specials. Our team develops smart, scalable capabilities that help ad operations plan, set up, and deliver ads seamlessly during live broadcasts. We’re pushing the boundaries with automated manifest generation, machine learning–driven optimizations, and agentic workflows that adapt in real-time to maximize both monetization and viewer experience. We work hand in hand with creative, streaming, and ads engineering teams to make advertising on Netflix Live feel effortless — blending storytelling, technology, and real-time decisioning into one unforgettable experience. It’s a fast-moving, high-visibility team shaping how live entertainment and advertising come together on a global stage.

The Ads Platform Foundations team builds the core platforms, frameworks, and shared services that accelerate development across the Ads organization. We focus on enabling teams to move faster and build consistently through scalable UI infrastructure, common components, and foundational workflows. Our work also powers access control across domains and underpins core systems such as Public API, GenAI foundations, and the Ads Entity Service — a knowledge graph connecting all Ads entities. Together, we provide the technical backbone that drives consistency, reliability, and velocity across Ads.

The Ads Campaign Management team is responsible for our in-house Order Management System (OMS) used by our account managers to facilitate the booking and execution of advertising campaigns on behalf of Agencies, Brands, and Advertisers. The team owns key parts of our campaign hierarchy (Orders, Line Items) and closely intersects with almost every other team across Ads Engineering (Creatives, Forecasting, Audiences, Measurement, Ad Serving, etc)  as well as business teams across Account Management and Ad Operations to facilitate the set-up, execution, and monitoring of ads across the Netflix ecosystem. 

The Ads Inventory Management & Forecasting team builds state-of-art real-time inventory forecasting solutions leveraging ML models and high-performance ad server simulations. The team also builds systems that enable publisher inventory management solutions, which support various monetization strategies such as dynamic pricing, rate card management, product packaging, inventory split, and yield optimization.

The Ads Data Clean Room team is redefining how clean rooms are used in digital advertising.  We’re building data collaboration tools as internal services, allowing multiple teams to share data with external partners in a convenient and privacy-safe way.  Our scope extends beyond traditional clean room use cases to include novel integrations where data has traditionally been shared more openly.  As the ads data landscape evolves, our team will continue to lead by creating new ways to enable collaboration while protecting privacy.

The Ads Finance team’s vision is to establish a compliant, accurate, automated, and omni-channel Finance and billing system that streamlines and optimizes financial operations for ads, with a core charter to create a unified and compliant Revenue Recognition layer, Automate billing, Invoicing and Journal processes. The Ads Finance platform centralizes and validates all the raw data—from campaign performance to pricing structures—needed to calculate and bill our diverse advertising revenue streams. This ensures financial integrity and consistency, providing a reliable foundation for all core Ad business operations, including budgeting, predicting future revenue, and managing credit and pricing strategies.

The Ads Eventing team builds and operates the foundational systems that collect, validate, enrich, and deliver ads-related events at a massive scale. These high-throughput data pipelines ingest raw signals from client devices (TV, mobile), server-side ad insertions, and external third-party integrations. The core mission is to transform these raw signals into clean, reliable, and privacy-safe data streams, ensuring data quality and fidelity across the board. This critical infrastructure directly powers all core downstream functions, including real-time ad serving decisions, robust measurement and attribution systems, and financial reconciliation and billing workflows.

The Ads Reporting Infrastructure team is responsible for delivering the final, actionable data to stakeholders. Their focus is on building the systems that consume validated and enriched ads delivery data to power the comprehensive reporting surfaces used by internal teams and advertisers to analyze campaign performance and business outcomes. They ensure the data presented is accurate, timely, and easy to consume, enabling key functions like measurement and attribution analysis, financial reconciliation, and strategic decision-making based on business results.

The Ads CRM team delivers the AI-powered Go-to-Market platform, the strategic engine for Netflix Ads sales and marketing. We don't just collect customer data; we create a unified, enriched view of our customers and their ad spend across every source, managing the entire lifecycle for impeccable quality and completeness. Our intuitive UI and intelligent automation agents surface critical, actionable insights, empowering our sales teams to cut through the noise, focus on high-value client engagements, and accelerate the success of Netflix Ads.

 

Generally, our compensation structure consists solely of an annual salary; we do not have bonuses. You choose each year how much of your compensation you want in salary versus stock options. To determine your personal top of market compensation, we rely on market indicators and consider your specific job family, background, skills, and experience to determine your compensation in the market range. The range for this role is $388,000.00 - $558,000.00.

Netflix provides comprehensive benefits including Health Plans, Mental Health support, a 401(k) Retirement Plan with employer match, Stock Option Program, Disability Programs, Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts, Family-forming benefits, and Life and Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off. Full-time salaried employees are immediately entitled to flexible time off. See more details about our Benefits here.

Netflix is a unique culture and environment. Learn more here.

Inclusion is a Netflix value and we strive to host a meaningful interview experience for all candidates. If you want an accommodation/adjustment for a disability or any other reason during the hiring process, please send a request to your recruiting partner.

We are an equal-opportunity employer and celebrate diversity, recognizing that diversity builds stronger teams. We approach diversity and inclusion seriously and thoughtfully. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.

Job is open for no less than 7 days and will be removed when the position is filled.