Software Engineer - Playable Ads (Creative Engineering)

Job description

## Who Are We? RZR is an AI-native advertising platform built for the next era of performance marketing. We operate at the intersection of machine learning, programmatic media, and full-funnel mobile growth, powering campaigns for some of the world's most ambitious advertisers. Our platform is purpose-built to deliver outcomes at scale, not just impressions. We are a team of builders, operators, and technologists who believe the advertising industry is overdue for a fundamental rethink. We move fast, operate with a high degree of ownership, and hold ourselves to an exceptionally high standard of craft. RZR is scaling aggressively with an active M&A pipeline and a platform vision that puts us on a path to becoming an industry leader. This is a rare opportunity to join a company at an inflection point and help shape what it becomes. --- ## Role Overview RZR's DSP already serves playable ads that clients hand us. We are now building the platform that creates them ourselves — a config-driven engine with a reusable library of game mechanics (Match-3, Runner, Puzzle, Drag & Drop, Sort/Merge) that can be configured with any advertiser's assets and gameplay rules, skinned per ad genre, packaged into a single self-contained build, and shipped across ad exchanges. This engineer owns the playables themselves: the mechanic library, the genre templates, the packaging pipeline, and the network adapters that make a CTA fire on every exchange. It is hands-on creative engineering — we need someone who has shipped real playables into real exchanges and knows where the bodies are buried. The role sits on Team Apollo alongside the Creative Platform group, partnering closely with design on the editor and live preview, and with the DSP team on campaign handoff and impression telemetry. --- ## Key Responsibilities - Build and maintain the reusable mechanic library — each mechanic parameterised so a new client or creative variation is a configuration change, not a new codebase - Multiply each mechanic into genre-specific templates (gaming-install, finance, retail), each skinned and paced for its audience - Build every playable for portrait and landscape from one configuration, shipped together as one bundle - Implement the interaction and telemetry layer — touched, tap count, completion %, win/lose, retry, exit point — reported per impression from release one - Build network adapter shims (Aarki, Kidoz, ironSource, generic MRAID) behind one internal lifecycle contract: ready, start, level start/end, progress, retry, finish/outcome, open-store - Own the build and packaging path: compress and base64-inline every image, audio file and font into a single HTML artifact that decompresses in-browser at load - Encode ad-environment constraints — file-size budgets, sandboxed execution with no runtime network calls, format compliance — into automated validation, since there is no client QA step to catch a bloated or non-compliant creative - Partner with design and the DSP team on the editor, live preview, and handoff into campaign delivery ## Required Skills and Experience ### Must-Have - 4–6 years in frontend or game engineering, including 3+ years building playable ads or HTML5 mini-games that shipped to production - Strong JavaScript/TypeScript, HTML5 Canvas/WebGL, and at least one lightweight engine (PixiJS, Phaser, CreateJS, Cocos, or equivalent) — plus the judgment to know when to skip the engine entirely for size reasons - Demonstrable experience with MRAID and the playable specs of major ad networks (ironSource, AppLovin, Unity Ads, Mintegral, Vungle, Meta, Google) — including single-file packaging, size limits, and the quirks of each SDK's wrapper - Real command of asset and build optimisation: texture atlasing, sprite sheets, audio compression, image encoding, minification, inline base64 packaging, and measuring your way down to a size budget - Game-loop fundamentals — state machines, tweening and animation, touch and gesture input, frame-rate and memory behaviour on low-end mobile devices - Responsive orientation handling and cross-device debugging on real hardware - Comfort building things to be configured rather than hardcoded: data-driven scenes, template systems, JSON-schema-style configuration ### Nice-to-Have - Built an internal playable builder or templating system, not just individual playables - Experience with build tooling (Webpack, Vite, Rollup) and custom bundlers or packagers - Familiarity with adtech mechanics — DSPs, impression and click pipelines, VAST/MRAID creatives - Creative performance instincts: what actually moves CTR and IPM in a playable - Animation and motion work with Spine, Lottie, or DragonBones --- ## Work Setup This is a hybrid role based in Bangalore, India. The team collaborates in person on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, with flexibility on other days. ## Why Join RZR? - **Own a product surface, not a ticket queue** — you are the only playables engineer on the platform. The mechanic library, the template system, and the packaging pipeline are entirely your craft area from day one. - **Greenfield with a real distribution channel behind it** — RZR's DSP already serves playables at scale, so everything you build ships into live campaigns immediately and gets measured. Most in-house playable teams build creatives and hope someone runs them. This one doesn't. - **Genuinely hard engineering constraints** — single-file builds, hard size budgets, fully sandboxed execution with no network calls, portrait and landscape from one config, and per-impression telemetry that has to work inside all of that. The bar is higher than typical in-house tooling. - **Build the system, not the thousandth playable** — the mandate is a config-driven engine with a reusable mechanic library. A meaningful step up for anyone who has spent years hand-building one-off creatives. - **Direct line to impact** — interaction data flows into RZR's existing impression pipeline, so you see how your creative engineering decisions move campaign performance rather than handing work over a wall. ## RZR Behaviors RZR operates by eight core behaviors: Extreme Ownership · Move Fast · Drive for Excellence · Proactive Communication · Courage · Curiosity · Deliver Results · Manage Ambiguity **RZR is an equal opportunity employer** RZR is a place where everyone can grow. However you identify, and whatever background you bring with you, we invite you to apply if this role excites you. RZR provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.