adjoe builds the technologies behind mobile apps growth and monetization. With our core product Playtime Arcade, we've become the global leader in rewarded advertising, an ad unit built on a simple premise: users earn real in-app rewards for engaging with new apps. The result is one of the most effective value exchanges in adtech, connecting advertisers and publishers with over 770 million users annually.
Architecting the sub-millisecond decision engine that powers 200 million daily ad interactions
The Demand Core team and backend platform squads build the foundational infrastructure that determines which of our thousands of active advertising campaigns are relevant to a user the moment they open Playtime. At our scale, system latency is a business failure: downtime means advertisers stop spending, users stop earning rewards, and publisher revenue stalls. As a Staff Backend Developer, you will own the architectural integrity, reliability, and long-term evolution of the distributed systems that power these decisions 200 million times every day across multiple teams.
Go microservices load the active ad campaign catalog into memory, evaluating 40+ targeting constraints and 30+ real-time signals like geo, fraud status, budget caps, to rank potential user performance in milliseconds. Beyond individual services, you will define architectural patterns across the entire ad interaction chain: high-throughput processing of clicks, views, MMP postbacks from Adjust and AppsFlyer, and reward-triggering in-app events. You will govern our hybrid messaging architecture using SNS/SQS and Kafka, standardize backend data patterns across DynamoDB, relational, and analytical data stores, and ensure our core ad scoring pipelines remain resilient under massive load.
Your Mission & Who We Are Looking For:
Production Golang Systems & Architecture Mastery: You bring extensive backend development experience (7+ years, with deep production Go expertise in distributed environments). You will define service boundaries, concurrency models, and runtime optimizations for our +99% Go microservice architecture, scaling the platform reliably beyond hundreds of millions of monthly active users.
High-Throughput Event Streaming & Architecture Patterns: You have deep experience architecting and standardizing asynchronous microservice communication using event backbones like Kafka, SQS/SNS, and Kinesis. You will establish org-wide streaming standards, schema evolution, and CDC patterns to process billions of daily API events and aggregate them into our data lake for sub-second querying.
Large-Scale Data Architecture & Platform Optimization: You understand database internals, distributed storage trade-offs, and low-level web standards. You will standardize data patterns (sharding, replication, DR) across hundreds of terabytes in DynamoDB, MySQL, Druid, and Athena, while leading high-stakes, zero-downtime database migrations and deprecations.
Data Science & Algorithmic Integration at Scale: You quickly grasp complex technical topics, distributed systems trade-offs, and applied mathematics. You will partner with our Data Science team to architect the runtime infrastructure that serves predictive models and machine learning algorithms directly within our sub-millisecond real-time ad targeting engine.
Technical Leadership & Organizational Leverage: You communicate fluently and precisely in spoken and written English. You drive alignment across squads through RFCs and Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), define org-level SLIs/SLOs, sponsor major technical migrations, and mentor Senior engineers across an international engineering team.
Plus: Cloud Resilience & Tooling: Hands-on experience with continuous profiling (e.g., Pyroscope, goroutine dumps), chaos engineering drills, and infrastructure automation using Terraform, Kubernetes, or AWS cloud networking.
🌎 We welcome applications from talent worldwide and provide relocation support to Hamburg, Germany for those ready to join our team.
What’s in It for You?
At adjoe, you’re not here to just close JIRA tickets, you’re shaping the architectural foundation behind one of the most impactful platforms in adtech. The systems and patterns you design will reach hundreds of millions of users and power billions of decisions every day.
Go Big. Own the technical direction and platform architecture with impact on 770M users and push adtech boundaries.
Move Fast. Ship solutions multiple times a day, establish golden paths that unlock engineering speed, and keep momentum.
Be Direct. Solve complex architectural bottlenecks openly and drive alignment across cross-functional teams.
Thrive Together. Grow with and elevate a diverse, global team of engineers from over 40 different countries that learn from each other.
Have Fun. Celebrate wins, solve hard computer science challenges, and bring your energy.
We welcome applications from people who will contribute to the diversity of our company.
Skills Required
- 7+ years of backend development experience
- Deep production experience with Go in distributed environments
- Experience architecting asynchronous microservice communication using Kafka, SQS/SNS, or Kinesis
- Experience with streaming standards, schema evolution, and change data capture patterns
- Understanding of database internals and distributed storage trade-offs
- Experience with sharding, replication, disaster recovery, and zero-downtime database migrations
- Experience with DynamoDB, MySQL, Druid, or Athena
- Ability to integrate predictive models and machine learning algorithms into production infrastructure
- Strong spoken and written English communication skills
- Experience driving technical alignment through RFCs and Architecture Decision Records
- Experience defining SLIs and SLOs
- Experience mentoring senior engineers
- Experience with continuous profiling, chaos engineering, Terraform, Kubernetes, or AWS cloud networking
What We Do
adjoe is a leading advertising and monetization platform providing publishers and advertisers with cutting-edge solutions to engage their audience and scale their business. By harnessing the power of rewarded engagement and premium targeting we help advertisers reach their most valuable users. adjoe’s proprietary technologies give publishers the opportunity to level up their current monetization strategies in order to create a meaningful engagement loop for users and grow revenue.
Why Work With Us
Despite our diverse nationalities and backgrounds, we work with one mindset, one goal, five values – and with a lot of fun. Whether that’s from our modern office in the city center or from home. Besides working in tight-knit teams, we trust you to own your learning, tasks, and technology to make great things happen.
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