Staff Software Engineer, Python

About the role

As a Staff Software Engineer on the Planning team within SiriusXM’s Ad Sales Product Engineering organization, you’ll define and drive the technical direction of our ad buying systems. You’ll architect resilient, cloud-native backend services that power large-scale ad delivery and campaign planning tools across the SiriusXM and Pandora ecosystem. Beyond building systems, you’ll shape engineering practices — leading modernization, scalability, and reliability initiatives that move our ad tech platforms forward.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and development of scalable, maintainable services that power ad buying and the complicated parts to it.
• Architect and evolve the Slingshot platform toward modern and cloud-native paradigms.
• Drive end-to-end execution — from design and implementation to deployment, monitoring, and performance optimization.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Data Engineering, DevOps, and SRE to deliver high-impact, integrated ad buying capabilities.
• Partner with data, UI, billing, and ad trafficking teams to optimize end-to-end ad buying workflows through intelligent automation.
• Champion observability, reliability, and operational excellence using Datadog, Grafana, and modern CI/CD practices.
• Mentor engineers across teams, fostering a culture of technical rigor, inclusion, and continuous improvement.
• Influence long-term architecture and technology strategy, aligning with SiriusXM’s broader ad tech roadmap.

Requirements

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 2+ years in a Staff or equivalent senior technical leadership role.
• Expertise in Python (Django, FastAPI, or similar frameworks) and backend architecture (e.g. microservices).
• Strong foundation in distributed systems and data pipelines, with hands-on experience in Kafka, Celery, or Airflow.
• Experience with ad serving or delivery platforms (e.g., Google Ad Manager, AdsWizz, Triton).
• Deep familiarity with AWS, Kubernetes, and infrastructure automation.
• Proficiency with observability tools (Datadog, Sentry, Grafana) and CI/CD workflows.
• Demonstrated success leading cross-team technical initiatives, mentoring engineers, and influencing large-scale architecture.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Must have legal right to work in the U.S.

Pay

The base salary for this position is expected to be in the range of $106,600 to $200,000 and will depend on your skills, qualifications, and experience. This role might be eligible for discretionary short-term and long-term incentives.