Creative Technologist (Playable Ads Developer)

Location: London, United Kingdom

 Smadex is a Barcelona-born Demand Side Platform delivering performance and transparency in programmatic for clients across America, Europe, and Asia. We’re growing our Creatives Studio to become one of the best and biggest creative performance teams in the ecosystem, building scalable creative solutions that drive measurable outcomes.

The role:

We are actively seeking a Creative Technologist (Playable Ads Developer) to focus on building industry leading interactive and playable experiences for our highest-value advertisers.

Reporting to the Director of Creative Solutions, this role sits at the intersection of Creative Services, Creative Innovation, and Product. Your mission is to ensure that our clients receive high-performing playable and interactive mobile creative experiences, and that we can iterate quickly based on clean measurement and structured experimentation.

You will define not just what we build in the playable space, but why it works, how we ship it reliably, and how we scale those learnings across accounts.
 

Key Responsibilities

1) Playable Ad Technology & Experience Development

• Build, architect, and extend high-performing playable ad experiences and interactive creatives for mobile and CTV  platforms.
• Translate creative concepts (including complex game mechanics) into functional prototypes and scalable ad templates (fast iteration, production-ready standards).
• Design mobile-first UX patterns specific to playable ads, including in-ad interaction logic, end-card flows, and call-to-action placement.
• Optimize for playable ad constraints: aggressively manage file size budgets, load times, device/OS compatibility, and platform-specific compliance requirements.

2) Playable Ad E2E Testing, QA & Delivery Reliability

• Define comprehensive test matrices and QA checklists (OS versions, device performance, cross-platform publisher environments, connection conditions).
• Debug complex issues related to SDK integration, third-party trackers, ad delivery, and in-ad game logic.
• Introduce automation where possible (test harnesses, validation scripts, pre-flight checks) to reduce production risk.

3) Cross-Functional Leadership & Client Enablement

• Act as connective tissue between Creative Design, Software and Services as well as Ad Ops, and Product on playable and interactive ad initiatives.
• Define clear workflows and handoffs to reduce bottlenecks and accelerate time-to-launch.
• Support high-stakes client conversations with technical confidence: feasibility, timelines, QA expectations, and measurement plans.
• Partner with Product on tooling and capability gaps needed to scale playable ad output.

4) Knowledge Management & Best Practices

• Build and maintain a playable creative repository: winning game patterns, do/don’t guidelines, specs, QA standards, learnings, and case studies.
• Share insights across teams through internal sessions, documentation, and repeatable templates.

What you bring:

Required

• 3-7+ years in creative technology making interactive ads for mobile
• A strong portfolio of Playable ads that have delivered positive performance against advertiser KPI
• Demonstrated expertise in relevant frontend technologies and libraries used for building complex interactive experiences/game mechanics under tight constraints.
• Hands-on experience with mobile playable tools (e.g.Phaser/Pixie, Unity/Cocos export, Playable Factory or platform-specific tools).
• Experience shipping and supporting creatives end-to-end (QA, troubleshooting, mobile ad delivery)
• Ability to translate performance/measurement needs into clear event tracking + experimentable variants.
• Commercial awareness and client facing experience in the App AU ecosystem

Good to have

• Experience building: 3D interactive experiences on mobile web; 
• Experience building: SIMID for CTV interactive
• Proven cross-functional collaboration skills and comfort working in fast-paced environments
• Deep experience with mobile E2E testing for ads (various device/OS combinations, ad verification, and publisher SDKs).
• Familiarity with programmatic concepts and the practicalities of ad serving & tracking in mobile in-app/playable workflows.
• Experience optimizing graphics performance and minimizing asset size for mobile web environments.

Success Metrics

• Improved playable ad performance as measured by engagement and IPM
• Increased iteration velocity for playable ad testing across high-value accounts.
• Higher reliability: improved QA pass rates, fewer production errors in playable logic, and minimized file size overrun, fewer delivery issues.
• Increased adoption of playable ad best practices: playbooks created, templates shipped, teams enabled.
• Stronger measurement signal: consistent event instrumentation and more actionable learnings from playable tests.