[Hiring] Senior Software Engineer II, Ads Data Solutions Engineering @Instacart

Role Description

The Ads DSE team builds the core capabilities that power Instacart's off-platform advertising, secure data collaboration (cleanrooms), automated taxonomy management, and their associated platform foundations. We are hiring a Senior Engineer II (L6) to:

• Co-own the technical roadmap.
• Modernize our data solutions infrastructure.
• Scale off-platform integrations and measurement capabilities.
• Extend our cleanroom collaboration capabilities.
• Automate taxonomy change management workflows.

This role is pivotal for cross-team collaboration, developer productivity, and AI-driven development initiatives.

You are a senior technical leader who:

• Designs and ships scalable, data‑intensive systems.
• Drives cross‑team execution.
• Raises engineering standards.

You’ll partner closely with Product, Data Science, Data Platform, and Governance teams to build reusable abstractions and deliver high‑impact features across our pillars: Off‑platform, Data collaboration (cleanrooms), Ads Taxonomy, Platform, and New Initiatives (AI). You will mentor L4/L5 engineers, act as an IC tech lead (no direct reports), and help define a future on‑call model and SLOs.

Qualifications

• Proven senior‑level impact.
• 8+ years of software engineering experience (typically 10+ for this level) delivering and operating large‑scale backend/data systems; led cross‑team projects and architectural decisions.
• Strong in Python and one of Ruby or Go; services/APIs (REST/gRPC); integrations with third‑party APIs (e.g., Meta, Google, The Trade Desk).
• Data pipelines with DBT and Airflow; Spark/Databricks; advanced SQL and performance tuning.
• Snowflake and AWS experience; cost‑aware design; workflow orchestration (e.g., Temporal) and event‑driven patterns.
• Experience with ad‑tech/programmatic and measurement integrations; cleanrooms (Snowflake DCR, shares/listings); identity/matching (UID2, RampID) and deconfliction.
• Working knowledge of privacy and compliance practices (GDPR/CCPA) in data workflows.
• CI/CD, containers, test strategy; observability (metrics/logs/tracing) with tools like Datadog; incident readiness and SLO thinking.
• Demonstrated, recent hands-on use of AI‑assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Cursor, OpenAI‑based assistants) to improve speed and quality.
• Clear technical writing; stakeholder management; ability to drive consensus and unblock execution.

Requirements

• Lead architecture for reusable, scalable systems across off‑platform workflows, cleanrooms, taxonomy automation, and the Ads Data Solutions Platform.
• Evolve core abstractions, testing, CI/CD, observability, and cost efficiency; proactively drive modernization.
• Propose and drive initiatives on behalf of engineering management; align stakeholders and manage dependencies.
• Expand and harden integrations with external advertising platforms; design privacy-forward activation and identity workflows; reduce reliance on third-party intermediaries; and build measurement ingestion pipelines for performance signals such as reach, frequency, and conversions.
• Extend our cleanroom orchestration and governance tooling (multi-cleanroom support, policy enforcement), develop reusable query templates and partner configurations, optimize pipelines for cost and performance, and scale secure data collaboration deployment and management.
• Lead intake automation (UI + backend) and release workflow improvements to reduce manual effort and cycle time.
• Assist with platform modernization and developer tooling improvements; contribute to an on‑call/SLO strategy as we mature operations.
• Translate ambiguous requirements into pragmatic phases (POC, pilot, production) with clear SLAs/SLOs.
• Champion security‑by‑design, data governance, and privacy compliance (e.g., GDPR/CCPA) across pipelines.
• Mentor engineers up to L5; set code quality and review standards.
• Build cross‑team partnerships (Ads Manager, Measurement Science, Data Platform, Privacy/Legal, and external platforms).

Benefits

• Highly market-competitive compensation and benefits.
• Remote work flexibility.
• Base pay range for a successful candidate: CAN $196,000 — $207,000 USD.
• Eligible for a new hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants.