{"id":79583,"url":"https://alion.io/job/zeta-global-senior-software-engineer-real-time-ad-serving-2","title":"Senior Software Engineer — Real-Time Ad Serving","company":{"id":5444,"name":"Zeta Global","domain":"zetaglobal.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/zeta-global","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":87,"open_postings":51,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.333,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":84,"computed_at":"2026-10-20T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"senior","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"posting_text","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"inferred","locations":["Prague, Czech Republic"],"countries":["CZ"],"hiring_countries":["DE","CZ"],"hiring_countries_total":2,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":48000,"max_usd":103000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_cell","sample_n":14},"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Lua","optional":false},{"name":"Agentic Workflows","optional":true},{"name":"AWS","optional":true},{"name":"Java","optional":true},{"name":"Rust","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-04-08T16:45:37Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-02","last_verified_at":"2026-10-20T07:31:10Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":194,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":[],"days_open":194},"description":"WHO WE ARE \nZeta Global (NYSE: ZETA) is the AI-Powered Marketing Cloud that leverages advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and trillions of consumer signals to make it easier for marketers to acquire, grow, and retain customers more efficiently. Through the Zeta Marketing Platform (ZMP), our vision is to make sophisticated marketing simple by unifying identity, intelligence, and omnichannel activation into a single platform - powered by one of the industry’s largest proprietary databases and AI. Our enterprise customers across multiple verticals are empowered to personalize experiences with consumers at an individual level across every channel, delivering better results for marketing programs. Zeta was founded in 2007 by David A. Steinberg and John Sculley and is headquartered in New York City with offices around the world. To learn more, go to www.zetaglobal.com.\n\nTHE ROLE\nAs a Senior Software Engineer on the LiveIntent Real-Time Ad Serving team, you will design, develop, and own the business logic that powers programmatic advertising at scale - ad selection, targeting, frequency capping, budget pacing, and delivery optimization.\nThe real-time platform is built on C++ and Lua: C++ provides the high-performance server framework, while Lua implements the business logic layer. You will work primarily in Lua, developing and evolving the features that directly serve LiveIntent's product - ensuring advertisers get the best outcomes and publishers maximize their revenue. While we're open to candidates with experience in any backend language, a willingness to work with Lua is essential - we provide time and the right environment to get up to speed.\nYou will collaborate closely with Product, working on features that directly impact LiveIntent's customers - from ad targeting and delivery to reporting and optimization. This is a hands-on engineering role where your code runs in production handling billions of daily transactions.\nThis is a hybrid/remote role based out of our Berlin, Germany or Prague, Czech Republic offices.\nESSENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES\nDevelop and optimize business logic in Lua for ad selection, targeting, frequency capping, and budget pacing\nDesign, build, and maintain real-time services processing 200K+ requests per second with strict latency requirements\nWork closely with Product to deliver features that meet advertiser and publisher needs\nEnsure code quality through code reviews, automated testing, and continuous integration\nParticipate in architecture discussions and influence the technical roadmap\nParticipate in on-call rotation to support production systems\nDESIRED CHARACTERISTICS\n5+ years of software engineering experience in backend development\nDeep understanding of computer science fundamentals: data structures, algorithms, performance optimization\nExperience building and operating distributed systems in production\nExposure to the full software development lifecycle - from design to production and monitoring\nStrong commitment to code quality, automated testing, and documentation\nProficient English (the interview process will be held in English)\nExperience with Lua or willingness to learn (we provide time and the right environment)\nExperience in online advertising / ad tech (RTB, programmatic, DSP/SSP) is a plus\nProficiency in a systems-level language (C++, Go, Rust, or Java) is a plus\nExperience with MongoDB and real-time data processing is a plus\nExperience with cloud infrastructure (AWS) at scale is a plus\nExperience with AI-assisted development tools and agentic workflows is a plus\nExperience with OpenRTB protocol and ad exchange integrations is a plus\nBENEFITS & PERKS\nExcellent medical, dental, and vision coverage\nPEOPLE & CULTURE AT ZETA\nZeta considers applicants for employment without regard to, and does not discriminate on the basis of an individual’s sex, race, color, religion, age, disability, status as a veteran, or national or ethnic origin; nor does Zeta discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. \nWe’re committed to building a workplace culture of trust and belonging, so everyone feels invited to bring their whole selves to work. We provide a forum for employees to celebrate, support and advocate for one another. Learn more about our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion here: https://zetaglobal.com/blog/a-look-into-zetas-ergs/ \nZETA IN THE NEWS!\nhttps://zetaglobal.com/press/?cat=press-releases","description_format":"text","description_chars":4448,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"English","level":"Advanced (C1)","optional":false}]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"Germany","iso":"DE","kind":"country"},{"name":"Czech Republic","iso":"CZ","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Marketing Automation","Email Marketing","Customer Data Platforms (CDP) & Reverse ETL"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-04-08T16:45:37Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":14,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.511,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":194,"expected_fill_days":84,"reasons":["conf:2","velocity","win:tail","crowd:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-20T05:45:00Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/zeta-global-senior-software-engineer-real-time-ad-serving-2","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/zeta-global-senior-software-engineer-real-time-ad-serving-2.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-20T09:45:11Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":10680,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-21T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":5444},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=5444"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fzeta-global-senior-software-engineer-real-time-ad-serving-2"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fzeta-global-senior-software-engineer-real-time-ad-serving-2"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fzeta-global-senior-software-engineer-real-time-ad-serving-2"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/zeta-global-senior-software-engineer-real-time-ad-serving-2\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fzeta-global-senior-software-engineer-real-time-ad-serving-2"}]}