Principal Software Engineer, Ads

About this role

<div class="content-intro"><p><img style="display: none; max-width: 100%;" src="https://click.appcast.io/greenhouse-te8/a31.png?ent=34&e=22630&t=1701374353806" width="1px"> <img style="display: none; max-width: 100%;" src="https://track.jobadx.com/v1/i.gif?utm_pixel=224e990b-8ff4-4287-8d5d-2ff09647f181&utm_ptz=EST&utm_rqt=track" alt="" width="1"></p></div><h2><strong>About the Team</strong></h2> <p>DoorDash Ads has become one of the fastest growing parts of DoorDash and a core pillar of the company's growth. Our Ads platform serves two core customer groups,  Restaurant and CPG advertisers, and is rapidly expanding from enterprise into mid-market and SMB. The business is scaling fast, and we're building the infrastructure to match it. We are evolving from a first-generation platform into a sophisticated, full-funnel advertising system. The architectural decisions made now will define how DoorDash Ads scales across restaurants, retail, and grocery for the next decade.</p> <h2><strong>About the Role</strong></h2> <p>As a Principal Engineer on Ads, you will serve as the technical leader for the Ads organization, setting architectural direction and driving the long term technical strategy for the systems that power our entire advertising business. This is an individual contributor role with organization-wide technical authority and director level scope. You will define what we build, how we build it, and the engineering culture that outlasts any single project. You will partner closely with Machine Learning, Product, Data Science, and Infrastructure stakeholders to align on roadmap, scale foundational systems, and deliver high-impact outcomes that improve advertiser ROI, platform reliability, and consumer experience.</p> <h2><strong>You're excited about this opportunity because you will…</strong></h2> <ul> <li>Lead at scale.<strong> </strong>Serve as the technical lead for the Ads organization, providing architectural vision and direction across the full Ads stack.</li> <li>Influence across the organization. Drive alignment across ML, Infrastructure, Product, Data Science, and partner engineering teams. Mentor engineers across the Ads org to raise the bar on technical excellence and systems thinking.</li> <li>Shape engineering culture<strong>.</strong> Define the patterns, principles, and standards for how the Ads org designs, ships, and operates large scale distributed systems.</li> <li>Solve genuinely hard problems, hands on<strong>.</strong> Dig into the most complex distributed systems challenges in ads and write code that moves the needle.</li> </ul> <h2><strong>We're excited about you because you have… </strong></h2> <ul> <li>B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science or equivalent experience.</li> <li>12+ years of industry experience, with a proven track record of leading large-scale, high-impact platform initiatives that span product, engineering, and ML teams.</li> <li>Demonstrated ability to define and drive multi-year technical roadmaps that balance short-term product delivery with long-term platform health, with clear ownership of the architectural decisions that shape both.</li> <li>Deep expertise building and scaling platform systems that serve as the foundation for product experiences.</li> <li>Meaningful experience in ads, commerce, or marketplace platforms.</li> <li>Ability to operate at director level scope - driving technical strategy, communicating across executive stakeholders, and shaping organizational priorities - while remaining deeply hands-on.</li> <li>Exceptional technical intuition paired with strong cross functional influence and alignment skills.</li> <li>Humility and a growth mindset; you lead through expertise and collaboration, not hierarchy.</li> </ul> <p> </p> <p> </p><div class="content-pay-transparency"><div class="pay-input"><div class="description"><p><span style="font-size: 32px;"><strong>Compensation</strong></span></p> <p>The successful candidate’s starting pay will fall within the pay range listed below and is determined based on job-related factors including, but not limited to, skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. Base salary is localized according to an employee’s work location. Ranges are market-dependent and may be modified in the future.</p> <p>In addition to base salary, the compensation for this role includes opportunities for equity grants. Talk to your recruiter for more information.</p> <p>DoorDash cares about you and your overall well-being. That’s why we offer a comprehensive benefits package to all regular employees, which includes a 401(k) plan with employer matching, 16 weeks of paid parental leave, wellness benefits, commuter benefits match, paid time off and paid sick leave in compliance with applicable laws (e.g. Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act). DoorDash also offers medical, dental, and vision benefits, 11 paid holidays, disability and basic life insurance, family-forming assistance, and a mental health program, among others.</p> <p>To learn more about our benefits, visit our careers page <a href="https://careers.doordash.com/">here</a>.</p> <p>See below for paid time off details:</p> <ul> <li><strong>For salaried roles:</strong> flexible paid time…