Staff Backend Software Engineer - Performance

Job description

ABOUT VIBE At Vibe.co http://Vibe.co, we're reimagining how brands reach audiences in the age of streaming. We believe streaming TV is no longer just a brand awareness play, it's the next great performance marketing channel. We're building the infrastructure to unlock this $100B opportunity. Vibe.co http://Vibe.co provides an Audience First Streaming TV Advertising solution for marketers to unlock TV as a growth channel. Our all-in-one solution combines hyper-targeted audience segmentation, AI-powered insights and recommendations, real-time campaign optimization, and incrementality measurement, giving brands of all sizes the precision and transparency they've come to expect from social and search, but on TV. Trusted by over 10,000 brands, Vibe.co http://Vibe.co reaches more than 120 million households across 500+ apps and channels, delivering an average 250% return on ad spend and 20% sales lift. The company hit a $100 million revenue run rate in under two years, ranking among the ten fastest software companies to reach that milestone. Vibe.co http://Vibe.co's investors include Hedosophia (an early backer of Spotify, Uber, and Airbnb), Elaia, Singular, QuantumLight (Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky's fund), and Illusian (Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen's fund), as well as angel investors including Carolyn Everson, board member of The Walt Disney Company and Coca-Cola. Nirav Tolia, CEO of Nextdoor, sits on the company's board of directors. Founded in 2022, Vibe.co http://Vibe.co is widely recognized as the category-defining platform in streaming TV advertising, bringing the power of Meta and Google-style performance marketing to the fastest-growing segment in media. ABOUT THE ROLE You'll join the Performance team the engineers who own advertiser outcomes at Vibe. Bidding, pacing, and the prediction stack that drives both. You'll report to Clément Schiano, Engineering Manager for Performance. This role exists because our roadmap is clear and the bottleneck is execution. We have a knowledge concentration problem too: critical expertise sits with one person, which creates fragility. We need someone who can absorb, challenge, and extend that knowledge not just ship tickets. Three reasons someone great would want this job: 1. CTV performance advertising is still being invented. The auction dynamics, identity graph, and feedback loops are nothing like display or search. There's no playbook to copy you'd be writing it. 2. You own the full decision loop. From prediction to bid price to pacing, on a product real advertisers depend on today. Your judgment shapes the direction. You'll see the impact in the numbers within weeks. 3. The timing is right. Past "does this work?" and into "how fast can we scale this?" Early enough to shape the architecture. Late enough that you're not building on sand. WHAT YOU'LL DO Own the pacer and bidder - Go deep on the bidder and pacer stack map it end-to-end and identify at least one fragility worth owning on day one - Propose improvements to the bidder or pacer autonomously from problem definition through to design proposal - Ship measurable improvements to CPx, pacing accuracy, or win rate within your first three months Raise the team's ceiling - Distribute critical system knowledge: make the team faster and less dependent on any single person - Challenge existing designs, including inherited ones, and push for cleaner solutions - Deepen expertise in the theoretical foundations (probabilistic modelling, PID control theory) powering our approaches Move at Vibe pace - Use AI tooling as a genuine force multiplier (not a crutch, not a checkbox) - Iterate in production, not in your head, we - ship, measure and adjust WHAT YOU NEED - Shipped backend systems in a strongly typed language C++, Rust, Go, Scala, Java, or equivalent at production scale - Debugged distributed systems under real traffic: latency issues, consistency failures, the works - Worked inside a DSP, SSP, or bidder: you understand auction mechanics from the inside - Built or tuned pacing algorithms or PID controllers theory and implementation, not just awareness - Solid grounding in probabilistic reasoning and statistical modelling you think in distributions, not just averages Nice to Haves - Experience in a scale-up environment you know what fast and resource-constrained actually feels like - ML systems in production: feature pipelines, model serving (not just training notebooks) - Real-time data pipelines and low-latency architectures at scale - Redis, Kafka, or equivalent under meaningful load OUR VALUES At Vibe, we run on three values: Impact, Ambition, and Urgency. We tie every goal to a real business outcome, think 10x rather than settling for good enough, and move daily rather than waiting for perfect conditions. You'll thrive here if you own outcomes without needing direction, default to action, and hold yourself to results, not effort. This is a high-performance environment with high-performance rewards: you'll work alongside people who push you, with real ownership over hard problems in a market that's moving fast. If that sounds like the best version of your career, we want to meet you. WHAT WE OFFER - Variable pay — based on objectives you hit. No arbitrary targets. - Hybrid flexibility — We're in the heart of Paris and our team is in 3x a week! - Health insurance — Full coverage via Alan. - Meal vouchers — Via Swile. - Annual offsite — The whole team, once a year, somewhere worth the trip. - Tech Syncs — Engineering and Product meet in person at least quarterly, worldwide. OUR INTERVIEW PROCESS We respect your time. Here's exactly what to expect — no surprises, no ghosting. 1. Recruiter screen — 30 min. We'll share context; you'll share yours. 2. Manager interview — Meet the person you'd work with directly. 3. Technical Coding Interview and Systems Design Interview 4. Calibration interview — A senior leader joins to ensure we're holding a consistent, high bar. 5. Offer — Fast. We don't let good decisions sit. 6. Reference checks — Two calls, handled with discretion. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY Vibe is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We believe the best ideas come from teams with different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or interview process, please let us know. REFERRAL INSTRUCTIONS Being referred? 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