The Trade Desk is a global technology company and the world’s leading independent platform for digital advertising, with nearly 4,000 employees across more than 30 offices. Our technology helps advertisers reach the right audiences across the open internet — from streaming TV and podcasts to mobile apps, news, and more.
Advertising powers the content people love. By making it more transparent, effective, and responsible, we help support trusted journalism, quality entertainment, and creators worldwide. The world’s brands and agencies rely on us to reach their customers and grow their businesses responsibly.
The scale of our platform brings unique technical challenges — from processing massive datasets in real time to building systems that operate reliably on a global scale. When you work here, your impact is worldwide. We welcome diverse perspectives, encourage curiosity, and build teams that learn from one another. If you’re driven to solve meaningful challenges, we’d love to meet you.
The Customer Success Excellence (CSX) team is The Trade Desk's customer-focused engineering team which takes on high value, measurable, tactical feature work across our platform to capture positive financial outcomes and improve external relationships. We own the full arc from identifying opportunities to delivering solutions that moves the business.
As a Lead Senior Software Engineer, you will be a technical as well as a people leader within CSX - shaping how we scope, plan, and ship high-value work across The Trade Desk platform. This is a hybrid role where you will balance your time between design, coding and driving technical direction, while also managing a team of engineers and facilitating the agile practices that keep delivery sharp and sustainable.
WHAT YOU'LL DOTechnical leadership
Demonstrate strong full-stack engineering skills and deliver high-quality, production-ready software.
Act as an active reviewer in design and code reviews, raising the technical bar for the team.
Shape technical approaches for complex, ambiguous problems and help engineers make sound design and implementation choices.
Translate customer pain points and operational bottlenecks into well-scoped engineering work with clear, measurable goals.
Communicate trade-offs, risks, and technical decisions clearly to product, business, and engineering stakeholders.
People leadership & management
Manage a small team of engineers, holding regular 1:1s and leading performance and growth conversations.
Give candid, constructive feedback that helps people grow while maintaining trust and psychological safety.
Invest in career development by helping engineers build and execute on clear growth plans.
Foster an inclusive, collaborative team culture that values diverse perspectives and shared ownership.
Build trust through consistency: follow through on commitments, surface blockers early, and keep the work moving.
Navigate ambiguity by proposing pragmatic paths forward for underspecified customer or operational problems and aligning stakeholders.
Represent the team in cross-functional discussions, ensuring shared understanding of priorities, timelines, and risks.
You have 8+ years of full-stack experience with excellent engineering fundamentals. You can dive into code and systems design, raise the technical bar through thoughtful reviews, and make pragmatic trade-offs that balance quality, speed, and risk.
You have a Bachelor’s/Master’s level degree in computer science or relevant engineering-related field or equivalent experience. Not everyone has the same level of access to opportunities. What is most important to us is what and how you can contribute, which is why our consideration is not limited by the level of education you have.
You have a track record of leading small, high-performing engineering teams while also making significant, end-to-end individual contributions to complex software projects. You think beyond the immediate task to deeply understand the customer and business “why” behind the work.
You are a driver. You bring structure and momentum to ambiguous customer and operational problems, shaping them into clear, measurable engineering goals and ensuring the team ships high-value work consistently.
You are customer-obsessed. You naturally translate customer pain points, operational bottlenecks, and financial opportunities into scoped engineering work that has measurable business impact.
You communicate with clarity and candor. You can explain technical decisions, trade-offs, and risks to engineers, product partners, and business stakeholders in language that builds alignment and trust.
You are an empathetic people leader. You invest in your engineers’ growth, give direct but caring feedback, and create the psychological safety needed for honest discussion, healthy disagreement, and shared ownership.
You are comfortable managing both the work and the team. You run effective 1:1s, guide performance and growth conversations, and support engineers in building and executing on clear development plans.
You foster an inclusive, collaborative culture. You seek out diverse perspectives, invite challenge to your own ideas, and optimize for the best outcome for the team and the business—not for individual credit.
You navigate ambiguity with confidence. When problems, requirements, or stakeholder inputs are underspecified, you propose pragmatic paths forward, surface trade-offs, and drive toward decisions.
You are execution-focused and reliable. You follow through on commitments, surface blockers early, and are known as someone who can be trusted to keep critical work moving across teams and functions.
In accordance with various US state laws, 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, 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 variable compensation-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
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.
Skills Required
- 8+ years of full-stack experience
- Bachelor's/Master's degree in computer science or related field or equivalent experience
- Experience leading small engineering teams
- Strong communication skills with stakeholders
- Ability to navigate ambiguity and propose solutions
The Trade Desk Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about The Trade Desk and has not been reviewed or approved by The Trade Desk.
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Affordable Benefits — Healthcare premiums are often paid in full for employees and dependents, reducing out-of-pocket costs. Coverage includes medical, dental, and vision alongside mental health and wellness support.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Packages commonly include new-hire stock grants, a generous Employee Stock Purchase Plan, and equity refreshers tied to performance. Feedback suggests equity meaningfully boosts total compensation alongside base pay and bonuses.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Generous PTO, paid holidays, paid sick time, and sabbaticals are available. Paid parental leave and extensive family-planning support broaden time-off and caregiving coverage.
The Trade Desk Insights
What We Do
The Trade Desk is changing the way global brands and their agencies advertise to audiences around the world. Our mission is to transform media for the benefit of humankind. Our media-buying platform helps brands deliver a more insightful and relevant ad experience for consumers — and sets a new standard for reach, accuracy, and transparency.
Why Work With Us
With up to 11 million queries per second and SLAs in the milliseconds, we’re tackling data and software challenges at massive scale. While we’re growing fast, investing in our value based company culture remains one of our top priorities. If you’re talented, driven, and hungry to bring something entirely new and wildly ambitious, let's talk.
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