Principal Architect, Platform Architecture - 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.
Job Summary
FreeWheel's Enterprise Architecture team partners closely with our Product and Engineering organizations to translate target business outcomes and client requirements into scalable product designs and technical solutions - delivered on our cloud-native platforms. You will be a strategic member of the architecture group that will provide recommendations and technology design guidance for Product Management and Technology leadership to drive smart investment across our technology portfolio. We are looking for an architect with experience in the Ad Tech industry who can quickly ramp up on our business processes, application portfolio, and data architecture - in order to develop Solution Blueprints, product-aligned Architecture Roadmaps, Reference Architectures and Extensibility Frameworks that accelerate innovation while protecting performance, reliability, security, and cost efficiency.
Job Description
Core Responsibilities

• Serve as the architecture interface between Product and Engineering, converting market and client needs into pragmatic, end-to-end solution designs for Streaming Hub (SSP/ad server), Programmatic Demand (DSP), Audience/Identity, Measurement, and Revenue Science platforms.
• Produce Solution Blueprints, Reference Architectures, and Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) that balance speed with long-term maintainability, platform consistency, and extensibility.
• Guide Product-aligned Architecture Roadmaps, sequencing capabilities to deliver measurable business value while reducing technical debt.
• Provide hands-on design leadership for cloud-native (Kubernetes, microservices, data plane/control plane) systems including reliability (SLOs/SLA), observability, security, privacy, and cost controls.
• Shape standards for data contracts, identity, consent, measurement, and programmatic interoperability across buy- and sell-side workflows.
• Identify and lead strategic initiatives to grow our technical capability, reducing tech debt, improve software quality and velocity.
• Establish common practices for teams to ensure end software and systems interact seamlessly with one another
• Advise and support leaders on technical choices and associated risks and rewards on build, buy, extend, customize and deprecate strategies; facilitate architecture reviews; and de-risk delivery with proof-of-concepts and reference implementations.
• Reinforce and voice support for grounding principles to ensure architecture designs are stable, secure, scalable, reusable, and operable.
• Review and ensure Solution Designs produced both internally and by 3rd party suppliers.
• Apply new and innovative ideas to business and technology constraints, champion diversity and innovation.
• Develop strategies and guidelines on cloud governance, tech stack selection, capability development and systems deprecation.

Expectations

• Operate as a product-minded architect who frames design choices in terms of client value, market differentiation, and time-to-impact.
• Raise the bar on platform thinking (shared services, paved roads, golden paths), ensuring we build once and reuse broadly.
• o Lead design forums and cross-functional architecture reviews; drive clarity via ADRs and migration plans that teams can execute.
• Balance near-term delivery with long-term modernization (domain boundaries, event-driven patterns, data mesh where appropriate).
• Model pragmatism and coaching-unblock delivery teams, simplify where possible, and document patterns others can follow.
• Drive results and growth. Contribute to measurable operational excellence (availability, latency, quality, resilience, security, cost) tied to business SLAs/SLOs.
• Guide, encourage, and empower teams around you by leaning into problems and encouraging them to do so too. Contribute to talent growth by mentoring architects/engineers and evolving our EA practices and artifacts.
• Knowledge of emerging solutions, systems, applications and tech stacks.
• Respect and promote inclusion & diversity.

Experience Needed

• 10+ years in software architecture/engineering, with 5+ years leading distributed, high-scale, low-latency systems (Go/Java/Scala, gRPC/REST, Kafka/Pub-Sub, columnar/NoSQL stores).
• Designed or led architectures for ad serving and SSP platforms (preferably premium video/CTV), including unified decisioning (direct + programmatic), mediation, forecasting, and yield protections.
• Working knowledge of header bidding, deal types (OpenRTB, PMP, curated deals), supply-path optimization (SPO), and auction transparency.
• Built or integrated with DSP workflows (planning, activation, bidding, pacing/optimization, frequency management, brand safety, measurement).
• Practical grasp of identity & addressability (e.g., first-party graphs, UID2/PPID concepts, clean rooms), and how buyers/sellers align IDs for targeting and measurement (preferably in CTV).
• Architected privacy-centric audience and measurement capabilities-data onboarding, audience building/forecasting, reach/frequency, outcomes-using standardized signals and ID interoperability.
• Kubernetes (multi-cluster, multi-region), service mesh, autoscaling, observability (OpenTelemetry), and resilience engineering; hands-on with at least one major cloud. Experience with multi-cloud architecture a plus.
• Strong security and privacy patterns (OAuth/OIDC, tokenization, encryption, secrets, least-privilege, auditability) and FinOps sensibilities. Hands-on experience with API management and API security standards.
• Proven track record turning ambiguous business needs into roadmaps, blueprints, and execution plans; excellent communication with senior product leaders, engineering, sales, and client-facing teams.
• Bonus: Experience with live events / live linear ad decisioning, SSAI, or programmatic for live sports/news. Knowledge of curated supply strategies and buyer curation tools is a plus.
• Bonus: Working experience with AI/ML and analytics platforms.

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 digital options at every touchpoint, and make them promoters of our products and services.
• Know your stuff - be enthusiastic learners, users and advocates of our game-changing technology, products and services, especially our digital tools and experiences.
• Win as a team - make big things happen by working together and being open to new ideas.
• Be an active part of the Net Promoter System - a way of working that brings more employee and customer feedback into the company - by joining huddles, making call backs and helping us elevate opportunities to do better for our customers.
• Drive results and growth.
• Respect and promote inclusion & diversity.
• Do what's right for each other, our customers, investors and our communities.

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 digital options at every touchpoint, and make them promoters of our products and services.
• Know your stuff - be enthusiastic learners, users and advocates of our game-changing technology, products and services, especially our digital tools and experiences.
• Win as a team - make big things happen by working together and being open to new ideas.
• Be an active part of the Net Promoter System - a way of working that brings more employee and customer feedback into the company - by joining huddles, making call backs and helping us elevate opportunities to do better for our customers.
• Drive results and growth.
• Support a culture of inclusion in how you work and lead.
• Do what's right for each other, our customers, investors and our communities.

Disclaimer: This information has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees in this role. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities and qualifications.
Comcast is an equal opportunity workplace. We will consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable law.
Skills:
Kubernetes; Cloud Architectures; Infrastructure Architecture
Salary:
Virginia Pay Range: $181,533.12 - $272,299.68
Additional Range: This job can be performed in Illinois, and Denver Campus with a Pay Range of $165,747.63 - $272,299.68
Comcast intends to offer the selected candidate base pay within this range, dependent on job-related, non-discriminatory factors such as experience. The application window is 30 days from the date job is posted, unless the number of applicants requires it to close sooner or later.
The application window is 30 days from the date job is posted, unless the number of applicants requires it to close sooner or later.
Base pay is one part of the Total Rewards that Comcast provides to compensate and recognize employees for their work. Most sales positions are eligible for a Commission under the terms of an applicable plan, while most non-sales positions are eligible for a Bonus. Additionally, Comcast provides best-in-class Benefits to eligible employees. We believe that benefits should connect you to the support you need when it matters most, and should help you care for those who matter most. That's why we provide an array of options, expert guidance and always-on tools, that are personalized to meet the needs of your reality - to help support you physically, financially and emotionally through the big milestones and in your everyday life. Please visit the compensation and benefits summary on our careers site for more details.
Education
Bachelor's Degree
While possessing the stated degree is preferred, Comcast also may consider applicants who hold some combination of coursework and experience, or who have extensive related professional experience.
Relevant Work Experience
15 Years +