Senior Software Engineer - Identity

We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join our Identity team in Amsterdam. The Identity team builds and operates the core systems that power Samba cross-device identity resolution, data onboarding, and distribution capabilities, the foundational layer connecting data to advertisers, agencies, data partners, and internal product teams.

You will architect and deliver large-scale, cloud-native data engineering systems that ingest, transform, and distribute identity-linked data at scale.

You bring 12+ years of experience and operate as a technical authority, setting direction, resolving complex ambiguity, and shaping how Identity systems evolve to support Samba’s expanding product ecosystem. You are a subject matter expert recognized across the organization, drive cross-functional alignment, and are accountable for outcomes that span the Identity domain and broader product engineering.

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and operate large-scale data pipelines for ingestion, transformation, and distribution of identity-linked data, setting the standard for reliability, accuracy, and extensibility across the domain.
• Architect ETL/ELT workflows using distributed computing frameworks on cloud infrastructure, making and owning the key engineering decisions that shape how the team builds and scales.
• Design and build API-first, platform-grade services that expose Identity capabilities as self-service building blocks, with clear contracts, strong reliability, and ease of integration for internal teams and external clients.
• Define and implement observability, data quality validation, and monitoring frameworks to ensure pipeline health at scale.
• Drive performance optimization, cloud cost efficiency, and platform-thinking across Identity’s systems, ensuring components are reusable and enable downstream teams to build with confidence.
• Own the technical evolution of Identity’s core systems, including probabilistic and deterministic matching, device graph construction, and audience segmentation - driving their reliability, scalability, and long-term direction.
• Architect and implement secure data collaboration capabilities, including clean room workflows and privacy-preserving computation, embedding privacy-by-design across all system development with deep application of GDPR, CCPA, and Samba’s data governance policies.
• Set the technical direction for how Identity systems serve all downstream use cases, engaging product, data science, commercial, and partner stakeholders to ensure alignment and fit for purpose.
• Own technical design and architecture for Identity systems producing clear, decision-driven design documents, contributing to org-level architectural discussions, and driving alignment across engineering, product, and commercial stakeholders.
• Lead code and design reviews, champion high standards for code quality, testability, and maintainability, and drive formal alignment across teams on shared tooling and patterns.
• Mentor and invest in the growth of engineers across the Identity team through structured feedback, pairing, and design reviews, raising the bar for the team as a whole.
• Partner with the Engineering Manager and cross-functional leads on roadmap shaping, technical planning, and systemic risk resolution.
• Own the end-to-end reliability of Identity systems, lead incident response, drive post-mortem actions to closure, and deliver sustained improvements to system health.
• Define, monitor, and continuously improve SLAs, SLOs, and operational metrics for Identity pipelines and services.
• Drive maturity in CI/CD, deployment practices, and testing coverage across the team’s systems.

Who You Are

• 12+ years of professional software engineering experience, with deep expertise in data engineering, backend systems, or distributed data infrastructure.
• Proven ability to own technical architecture end-to-end in a complex, production data environment, from design through delivery and operations.
• Strong command of Python and SQL; comfortable with JavaScript in full-stack or API contexts.
• Extensive hands-on experience with distributed processing frameworks (e.g., Spark, Databricks) operating on large-scale datasets in production.
• Solid experience with cloud platforms (AWS and/or GCP) and their core data services.
• Experience with workflow orchestration tools (Apache Airflow, dbt, Prefect, or equivalent).Strong familiarity with data warehousing and lakehouse architectures, including Snowflake.
• Experience building platform-grade, API-first systems that enable self-service by downstream consumers, internal teams or external clients.
• Deep understanding of data privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA) with practical experience building privacy-compliant systems that handle PII at scale.
• Familiarity with secure data collaboration concepts, data clean rooms, privacy-preserving computation, or equivalent patterns.
• An exceptional communicator and cross-functional collaborator, able to write sharp technical designs, convey advanced information to diverse stakeholders, and drive alignment in ambiguous situations. A genuine mentor and coach who invests in the growth of others, gives direct feedback, and raises the bar for the team as a whole.

Preferred

• Experience in ad tech, identity resolution, data licensing, or digital media, familiarity with device graphs, audience segmentation, or programmatic data flows.
• Experience with streaming data processing frameworks (e.g., Kafka, Flink, Spark Streaming).Experience incorporating AI and machine learning capabilities into production data workflows.
• Track record of cross-team technical leadership: architectural documentation, engineering standards, or mentorship programs.