below marketmost similar roles pay hereabove market
This role pays more than
97%
of similar roles. Most pay
$177,250–$252,312
— the blue band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$417k
versus about
$215k
for comparable roles.
Based on 240 similar postings.
Employer
About Snap Inc.
Snap Inc. is a technology and camera company, best known for Snapchat, offering visual communication, augmented reality, and advertising products.
Snap Inc. currently has
94 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$209,000–$313,000
across 84 roles with salary data.
The Senior Principal Software Engineer, Ads Quality joins the Ads Platform team to lead the technical direction of the Ads Marketplace. This role focuses on connecting advertiser demand with opportunities across Snapchat by managing how budgets are spent and where ads appear. You will shape the multi-year strategy and architecture for bidding, pacing, auctions, inventory, traffic optimization, and ad reranking. Key responsibilities include designing scalable algorithms for budget allocation, advancing auction mechanisms, and establishing experimentation standards to measure marketplace impact. You will utilize deep expertise in algorithms, optimization, statistics, and distributed systems to solve complex problems in real-time production environments. The work involves balancing advertiser outcomes, revenue, and user engagement while ensuring system reliability, latency, and cost efficiency across various Snapchat surfaces.
What does a Software Engineer earn in Washington?
Median $208250 from 412 postings across 40 companies.
Set the multi-year technical strategy and architecture for the Ads Marketplace.
Design and scale bidding, budget allocation, and pacing algorithms for efficient advertiser spend.
Advance auction mechanisms and pricing algorithms to improve marketplace efficiency and advertiser value.
Lead inventory and traffic optimization across Snapchat surfaces to balance monetization with user engagement.
Develop ad reranking and slate optimization approaches to ensure content relevance and diversity.
Establish evaluation methods and experimentation standards to measure incremental marketplace impact.
Resolve architectural trade-offs and dependencies while staying hands-on with prototyping and production problem solving.
Mentor senior engineers and build shared technical foundations to improve reliability, latency, and scalability.
What we're looking for
Bachelor’s degree in a technical field or equivalent practical experience.
10+ years of post-Bachelor’s software development experience; or a Master’s with 10+ years post-graduate; or a PhD with 7+ years post-graduate.
3+ years of experience providing technical leadership or serving as a domain expert for a technical organization.
Experience architecting, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems.
Experience setting technical direction and leading complex engineering initiatives across multiple teams from architecture through production.
Deep expertise in ads marketplace optimization, including bidding, pacing, auctions, ranking, and user experience.
Strong foundations in algorithms, optimization, statistics, and distributed systems for real-time production environments.
Proven track record of delivering improvements in advertiser performance or marketplace efficiency through ads bidding, pacing, auction, or inventory optimization (preferred).
Distributed Systems
Data Pipelines
Backend Services
AI Systems
Machine Learning
Software Design
Performance Analysis
Test Design
Signal Ingestion
Identity Matching
Measurement Frameworks
Scalable Services
Debugging
C
Swift
XPC
libdispatch
CoreData
Concurrency
Multi-threading
Client-Server Networking
Telemetry
Observability
OS Fundamentals
Memory Management
File Systems
Cross-Process Communication