Principal Staff Software Engineer, AI Advertiser Growth

Location: Mountain View, CA, us

Company Description

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, built to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Our products help people make powerful connections, discover exciting opportunities, build necessary skills, and gain valuable insights every day. We’re also committed to providing transformational opportunities for our own employees by investing in their growth. We aspire to create a culture that’s built on trust, care, inclusion, and fun – where everyone can succeed.

Join us to transform the way the world works.

Job Description

This role will  be based in Sunnyvale

At LinkedIn, our approach to flexible work is centered on trust and optimized for culture, connection, clarity, and the evolving needs of our business. The work location of this role is hybrid, meaning it will be performed both from home and from a LinkedIn office on select days, as determined by the business needs of the team.

LinkedIn's AI and Machine Learning Engineers are both data/research scientists and software engineers, who develop and implement machine learning models and algorithms. Unlike other companies that separate these roles, our engineers work on projects from ideation to implementation. 

As a Principal Staff Software Engineer you will be setting the technical direction and foundation to build and own algorithms, models, and systems that power our LinkedIn ad tech platform. We are looking for a high performing and high ambition tech lead who will use AI/ML to push the boundaries of our ad stack and meet the future needs of our B2B advertisers.

The Advertiser Growth team at LinkedIn is at the forefront of driving sustainable growth and delivering exceptional value to a diverse global community of advertisers. Central to LinkedIn’s mission of creating economic opportunity, the team plays a pivotal role in achieving the company’s revenue goal by tackling critical challenges like optimizing advertiser journeys, reducing advertiser churn, boosting retention, and acquiring high-quality advertisers who drive significant revenue.

Responsibilities:

• Define and execute technical vision for applying AI to accelerate advertiser growth, improve efficiency, and enhance personalization across multiple product surfaces
• Design and build large-scale deep learning models and recommender systems that drive relevance and optimize advertiser outcomes.
• Develop, evaluate, and fine-tune large LLMs to improve accuracy, alignment and product performance for advertiser-facing use cases
• Partner with Product, Data Science, and AI Research teams to translate business goals into scalable AI-powered capabilities that improve Advertiser customer’s journey. 
• Architect and deploy user-facing AI systems that adapt to advertiser needs, simplify workflows and deliver personalization guidance. 
• Establish best practices for experimentation, model evaluation, and responsible AI within the advertiser growth ecosystem. 
• Mentor engineers and collaborate across organizations to scale reusable ML components, accelerate iteration, and strengthen LinkedIn’s AI infrastructure.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications

• BS (or higher, e.g., MS, or PhD) in Computer Science or related technical field involving coding (e.g., physics or mathematics), or equivalent technical experience
• 7+ years of industry experience in software design, development, and algorithm related solutions.
• 5+ years in an architect or technical leadership position
• Background in the following areas: Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

Preferred Qualifications

• BS and 12+ years of relevant work experience, MS and 10+ years of relevant work experience, or PhD and 8+ years of relevant work experience.
• Experience in designing and implementing technologies for highly distributed platforms.
• Familiarity with multiple platforms (Linux, Windows, etc.) and languages (C++, Python, etc.).
• Experience in the Advertising and Marketing Industry.
• Experience in Data Science, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.
• Experience designing and building scalable agentic systems.

Suggested Skills missing

• Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
• Advertising and Marketing.
• Building scalable agentic systems.

You will Benefit from our Culture

We strongly believe in the well-being of our employees and their families. That is why we offer generous health and wellness programs and time away for employees of all levels.

LinkedIn is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices.

The pay range for this role is $207,000 to $340,000. Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, depth of experience, certifications, and specific work location. This may be different in other locations due to differences in the cost of labor.

The total compensation package for this position may also include annual performance bonus, stock, benefits and/or other applicable incentive compensation plans. For more information, visit https://careers.linkedin.com/benefits

Additional Information

Equal Opportunity Statement 

We seek candidates with a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds and we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. LinkedIn considers qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other legally protected class.

LinkedIn is committed to offering an inclusive and accessible experience for all job seekers, including individuals with disabilities. Our goal is to foster an inclusive and accessible workplace where everyone has the opportunity to be successful.

If you need a reasonable accommodation to search for a job opening, apply for a position, or participate in the interview process, connect with us at [email protected] and describe the specific accommodation requested for a disability-related limitation.

Reasonable accommodations are modifications or adjustments to the application or hiring process that would enable you to fully participate in that process. Examples of reasonable accommodations include but are not limited to:

• Documents in alternate formats or read aloud to you
• Having interviews in an accessible location
• Being accompanied by a service dog
• Having a sign language interpreter present for the interview

A request for an accommodation will be responded to within three business days. However, non-disability related requests, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

LinkedIn will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by LinkedIn, or (c) consistent with LinkedIn's legal duty to furnish information.

San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance ​

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, LinkedIn will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Pay Transparency Policy Statement ​

As a federal contractor, LinkedIn follows the Pay Transparency and non-discrimination provisions described at this link: https://lnkd.in/paytransparency.

Global Data Privacy Notice for Job Candidates ​

Please follow this link to access the document that provides transparency around the way in which LinkedIn handles personal data of employees and job applicants: https://legal.linkedin.com/candidate-portal.