Lead Backend Engineer – Edge Platform (Ad Delivery Systems)

About Perion

Perion revolutionized the future of our industry by building our unique full stack ad tech platform.

On the buy side, marketers use Perion’s Demand Side Platform (DSP) to create measurable campaigns that activate DOOH screens in real time based on consumer behavior and audience movement patterns. On the sell side, DOOH media owners use Perion’s Supply Side Platform (SSP) & Ad Server and Header Bidder to manage inventory and drive revenue.

The key to our success has been our amazing pink-loving global team. We don’t like to rest on traditional workplace models, we are flexible to change and we aren’t afraid to stand out and champion new ideas. Sounds interesting? Come join us and make a real impact on digital screens around the world.

Job Description

Reporting to the VP Engineering, we are looking for a Lead Backend Engineer (Edge Lead) to take technical ownership of our real-time delivery systems while leading and growing a team of engineers.

This is a hands-on leadership role — a true player-coach position.

Technical Ownership

• Architecture and evolution of our Ad Server, SSP, Exchange, and DSP execution components
• High-throughput, low-latency distributed systems
• Performance optimization (latency, memory, throughput)
• Reliability, resiliency, and failover strategies
• Scalability planning and capacity forecasting
• Technical direction for refactors and long-term platform improvements

You will set architectural standards and make critical system design decisions impacting revenue and delivery performance.

Team Leadership

• Direct management of engineers within the Edge (Ad Delivery) team
• Mentorship, performance development, and hiring
• Raising engineering standards (code quality, observability, operational rigor)
• Acting as the escalation point for complex production or architectural challenges

Operational Excellence

• Own system reliability and SLO definitions
• Lead incident response and postmortems
• Drive root-cause analysis and systemic improvements
• Improve observability and monitoring across services

What You’ll Spend Your Time Doing

• Designing and implementing new capabilities in real-time systems
• Refactoring and optimizing performance-critical services
• Reviewing architecture and code
• Leading technical discussions and roadmap planning
• Mentoring engineers and conducting performance reviews
• Troubleshooting complex production issues

This role remains deeply technical. We expect strong hands-on involvement.

Required Experience

• 7+ years of backend engineering experience
• Strong background in distributed systems and production infrastructure
• Experience building or owning high-throughput, low-latency systems
• Strong proficiency in Go, C/C++, Python, Java, or similar backend languages
• Excellent Computer Science fundamentals with regards to data structures, algorithms, time complexity, etc.
• Experience managing engineers or leading technical teams
• Deep understanding of:
  • Concurrency and parallelism
  • System design tradeoffs
  • Failure modes in distributed systems
  • Performance profiling and optimization

Strongly Preferred (not mandatory)

• AdTech / RTB / OpenRTB experience
• Experience with SSP, exchange or DSP systems
• Experience working within strict timing constraints (sub-100ms request budgets)
• Kubernetes and AWS production experience
• Experience optimizing memory, CPU, and network performance

Our Technology Stack

• Languages: Golang, Python
• Databases: MySQL, Redis, Kafka, Clickhouse
• Infrastructure: AWS, Kubernetes, Docker
• DevOps: Terraform, Helm, GitHub Actions, CircleCI, Argo

What Success Looks Like

• Improved ad delivery latency, availability and system stability
• Improved efficiency and ad delivery economics
• Reduced production incidents
• Clear architectural direction across the Edge platform
• Stronger engineering culture within the component team
• High-performing, autonomous engineers

What we’ll bring to the table/What’s in it for you:

Competitive compensation packages, health and wellness benefits including:

• Healthcare package
• Virtual healthcare platform
• Annual wellness allowance
• Learning and development platform
• RRSP matching
• Flexible Fridays
• 3 personal days
• Unlimited sick days
• Hybrid/remote work
• Additional Work from home perks

Our culture

Our core values reflect the essence of who we are and how we work towards a common goal. Our core values are:

• People First - We are a business that cares. We care about our partners. We care about each other.
• Embrace the fast lane - As a group we are motivated by our ability to think and act quickly under all circumstances.
• Move as one - Our team of excellent achievers is a reflection of the faith and belief we all have in each other.
• Innovation over comfort - Innovate through experimentation and take calculated risks often.