Lead Software Engineer- Englewood, CO or Sunnyvale, CA- ONSITE 4X Weely- FreeWheel

FreeWheel, a Comcast company, provides comprehensive ad platforms for publishers, advertisers, and media buyers. Powered by premium video content, robust data, and advanced technology, we’re making it easier for buyers and sellers to transact across all screens, data types, and sales channels. As a global company, we have offices in nine countries and can insert advertisements around the world.

FreeWheel is seeking a Lead Software Engineer (ENG 5) to serve as a principal-level individual contributor driving the technical direction of our Buyer Cloud Ad Serving platform. The Ad Serving system is the high-throughput backbone of FreeWheel's demand-side platform (DSP). It processes billions of ad auctions daily, executes complex real-time decisioning strategies, and delivers responses in single-digit milliseconds. In this role, you will lead the architecture of mission-critical distributed systems, tackle complex performance and scale challenges, and influence engineering practices across multiple teams all without direct people management responsibilities Job Description Responsibilities:   Architectural Leadership:   Lead the end-to-end architecture, design, and execution of highly scalable, low-latency backend services for the Buyer Cloud platform.   Strategy:   Drive multi-team initiatives centered on platform reliability, system decomposition, scalability, and operational excellence.   System Optimization:   Identify   and   eliminate   performance bottlenecks in distributed workflows   operating   under strict latency budgets.   Cross-Functional Partnership:   Partner with Product, Infrastructure, SRE, and Data Engineering to define technical roadmaps and align technical strategy with business goals.   Engineering Standards:   Establish   best practices for design reviews, code quality, testing, observability, and incident root-cause analysis (RCA).   Mentorship & Talent Growth:   Mentor senior and mid-level engineers through design coaching, code reviews, and architectural guidance.   Consistent exercise of independent judgment and discretion in matters of significance.   Regular, consistent and punctual attendance. Must be able to work nights and weekends, variable schedule(s) as necessary.   Other duties and responsibilities as assigned The Ideal Skillset:

Bachelor’s or   Master’s degree in Computer Science , Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).

1 3 + years of professional software engineering experience, including   2 + years   in a Staff   or Lead Engineer role.   Core Languages:   Expert-level   proficiency   in compiled/high-performance languages ( C++ ,   Go ,   Java , or   Rust ).   Distributed Systems:   Proven   track record   of designing,   operating , and troubleshooting large-scale distributed backend systems in production.   Systems Engineering:   Deep understanding of concurrency, multithreading, memory management, networking protocols, and performance profiling on Linux.   Cloud & Infrastructure:   Experience building containerized, cloud-native services (AWS, Kubernetes, ECS, or equivalent) with robust observability (metrics, tracing, logging).   Bonus Points: Experience with ultra-low-latency, real-time decisioning systems (e.g., AdTech/DSPs, financial trading, real-time analytics , high -frequency auction systems).   Experience handling petabyte-scale datasets or systems processing millions of requests per second (RPS).   Familiarity with distributed datastores and storage platforms (e.g., Aerospike, Snowflake, event streaming architectures).   Demonstrated experience modernizing legacy architectures and driving cloud-native adoption.   Employees at all levels are expected to: Understand our Operating Principles; make them the guidelines for how you do your job. Own the customer experience think and act in ways that put our customers first, give them seamless