Lead Engineer - AdTech

About Us 

Target is an iconic brand, a Fortune 50 company and one of America’s leading retailers.  

Fueling the continued success of one of the world’s most beloved and recognized brands is a distinctly capable, creative and innovative Marketing organization. Target Marketing is well known for inspiring and surprising guests, and we pride ourselves in connecting them to the products and experiences they expect and deserve from Target. We study our guests to discover new needs and insights, and then craft every interaction to build brand love and our business. We are market experts who insist on a clear and cohesive understanding of our business objectives, guest segments and behaviors, strategies and tactics, overcoming obstacles and measuring success. Our commitment to partnering both internally and with external agencies, media and ad tech companies gives us a wide range of capabilities, from award-winning creative work to exciting and performance-based marketing. Leveraging our collective assets and fostering a healthy, supportive and open team culture, we deliver a holistically gratifying experience that guests can only get at Target.  

Roundel is Target’s entry into the media business with an impact of $1B+; an advertising sell-side business built on the principles of first party (people based) data, brand safe content environments and proof that our marketing programs drive business results for our clients. We are here to drive business growth for our clients and redefine “value” in the industry by solving core industry challenges vs. copy current industry methods of operation. Roundel is a key growth initiative for Target and lead the industry to a better way of operating within the media marketplace. Target Tech is on a mission to offer the systems, tools and support that our clients, guests and team members need and deserve. We drive industry-leading technologies in support of every angle of the business, and help ensure that Target operates smoothly, securely, and reliably from the inside out.

As a Lead Engineer, you will collaborate with cross functional teams to help set the technology strategy for Ad Tech platforms, including DSP, SSP, and Ad Servers, for self-service advertising needs. You will help assessing build/buy decisions for new capabilities through POCs and prototypes, keeping in mind long-term vs. short-term tradeoffs. You lead engineering efforts to meet functional and non-functional requirements and assist teams in resolving business challenges via current technical solutions. Work with engineering manager to build a high performing engineering team and provide technical leadership, coaching, motivation and participate in the selection of technical talent. You are a thought leader and actively participate and contribute to the Target technical community.

About you:

• Have 8+ years of software development experience with at least one full cycle implementation
• Understands Ad Tech business fundamentals and how technologies can support business goals along with how to translate business vision into a technical strategy while understanding the financial implications 
• Preferred experience in building and or integrating DSP, SSP, Ad Server technology platforms in support of self-service Advertising
• Stays current with new and evolving technologies via formal training and self-directed education 
• Passionate about the backend, especially about API's
• Fluent in Java / Spring and microservices
• Experienced working with databases (RDBMS, NoSQL such as Cassandra, Mongo etc)
• Experienced with Kafka
• Enjoy mentoring junior engineers
• Effective at collaboration with Product experts
• Stay current with the technology best practices and trends
• Worked within CI/CD, DevOps environment
• Has proven leadership capabilities, the ability to influence others, interpersonal skills, and problem-solving skills