Senior Backend Engineer (Ads Platform)

TL;DR

Senior Backend Engineer (Ads Platform) (Backend/Advertising): Building scalable ad-serving, auction, bidding, pricing, and monetization systems for Bolt Food with an accent on low-latency services, real-time decision-making, and high-performance APIs. Focus on designing ranking and delivery integrations, data pipelines, accurate billing, and foundational architecture for a new advertising platform.

Location: Hybrid in Berlin, Germany, with at least 12 in-office days per month.

Company

Bolt is a global mobility platform offering ride-hailing, food delivery, scooters, e-bikes, and car-sharing services across 50 countries.

What you will do

• Architect, design, and operate scalable, low-latency services for ad serving, auctions, bidding, and pricing.
• Integrate sponsored listings, banners, and targeted promotions into ranking and delivery infrastructure.
• Build real-time decision systems and data pipelines for targeting, relevance, budget pacing, campaign reporting, and spend tracking.
• Design high-performance APIs for merchants, advertisers, and internal teams.
• Set technical direction and engineering standards for the Ads & Monetization domain as a founding engineer.
• Partner with Product, Data Science, and Commerce teams to take advertising features from concept to launch.

Requirements

• Solid backend engineering experience building and shipping scalable, reliable, high-throughput systems.
• Experience with microservice architecture, API design, algorithms, and data structures.
• Strong understanding of latency, performance, and reliability trade-offs.
• Ability to work closely with product, data science, commerce, and engineering stakeholders.
• Daily use of AI tools is expected, with full responsibility for the quality of delivered work.

Nice to have

• Experience with advertising platforms, real-time bidding or auctions, marketplaces, search and ranking, or recommendation systems.
• Experience with event streaming, data pipelines, or A/B testing.
• Previous technical leadership or tech-lead experience.

Culture & Benefits

• Small, autonomous teams with substantial ownership and a fast feedback cycle.
• Hybrid work balancing flexibility with in-person collaboration.
• Competitive salary and stock options.
• Wellness benefits supporting physical and mental health.
• One month of paid sabbatical after five years at Bolt.
• Annual company events and smaller team gatherings.