Senior Software Engineer

Are you ready to revolutionize the advertising industry? 

At Cognitiv, we are not just another AdTech company—we are industry trailblazers redefining media buying with our Deep Learning Advertising Platform. Since 2015, we have harnessed the power of cutting-edge deep learning technology and data science to transform how brands connect with their customers. Our mission? To bring intelligence to advertising and deliver unparalleled precision, relevance, and impact at scale. 

With our innovative platform, advertisers enjoy unprecedented flexibility—whether it is activating Dynamic Deals through their preferred DSP, leveraging our managed service DSP, or utilizing our industry-first ContextGPT product. As a part of Cognitiv, you will be at the forefront of AI-driven advertising solutions, driving change and achieving remarkable growth in a rapidly evolving industry.

Now, we’re growing!

The Role
As a Senior Software Engineer, you will join our Reporting & Insights team. In this role, you will build the systems that measure performance across Cognitiv’s entire book of business, transforming large, complex datasets - spanning AI-driven campaign outcomes, attribution signals, and real-time performance data - into trusted, actionable insights for both internal teams and external clients.

You will own the design, delivery, and reliability of the core subsystems that power our platform, identifying unknowns and making the critical tradeoffs necessary to drive system performance and engineering effectiveness.

You will also help raise the technical bar for a strong mid-level team through hands-on mentorship, thoughtful design leadership, and high standards for engineering quality. This is an important hire for the team: someone who brings strong ownership, curiosity, and trust, and whose impact improves not only the systems we build, but how the team builds them.

Your Impact
In this role, success is measured by the tangible health and growth of our platform. You will:

• Lead Technical Design: Own the architecture of systems that sit at the core of how Cognitiv's clients and internal teams understand performance. Your design decisions will have lasting impact on how the platform scales and how reliably it delivers.


• Elevate Reliability: Identify bottlenecks and improve system observability (metrics, logging, monitoring). You will lead blameless post-mortems and implement long-term systemic fixes to prevent incident recurrence.


• Drive Engineering Excellence: Strengthen the team through high-quality code reviews, thoughtful design leadership, and hands-on mentorship that helps engineers make better decisions and execute with greater confidence. Set a high standard for technical artifacts like design docs and architecture diagrams that the whole team can learn from.


• Navigate Ambiguity: Exercise strong judgment to resolve unknowns and balance long-term system health with rapid development velocity.


• Build with AI: Embrace AI-assisted development practices throughout the engineering lifecycle, from design to code to debugging, and help the team raise its own bar on what's possible with modern tooling.


• Collaborate on Direction: Partner with Product and Engineering leadership to align technical solutions with business priorities and roadmap requirements.

Who You Are

• Advanced System Design: A proven track record of designing, decomposing, and delivering high-scale production services or distributed systems.


• Technical Proficiency: Deep expertise in C# and backend development. Ideally, you have extensive experience building Microservices using .NET Core.


• Cloud & Data: Hands-on experience with AWS and Postgres (or similar relational databases) in a high-concurrency environment.


• Operational Mindset: Deep understanding of system reliability, observability, and "up-front" design for maintainability.


• Ownership: Ability to independently drive technical initiatives from problem definition to deployment without needing granular guidance.


• Technical Leadership: Experience influencing engineering direction, mentoring peers, and helping teams make stronger technical decisions without formal people management.


• Curiosity: A habit of asking thoughtful questions, seeking context, and improving systems beyond immediate requirements


• Communication & Trust: Clear ability to explain technical tradeoffs and build confidence across engineers and stakeholders through consistency and follow-through


• Bonus Points: Experience in fast-moving startup environments or building data-heavy reporting engines/analytics platforms.

This role is a key technical addition to the team: someone who can raise the technical bar, strengthen how decisions are made, and act as a force multiplier by helping others grow through strong ownership, curiosity, and trust.

Salary: $160,000 - $210,000 USD + Equity

What We Offer

Compensation is based on experience, skills, and other factors. Base salary is just one part of your total rewards at Cognitiv—you’ll also receive equity and a comprehensive benefits package.

Highlights include:

• Medical, dental & vision coverage (some plans 100% employer-paid)


• 12 weeks paid parental leave + 4 weeks WFH


• Unlimited PTO + Work-From-Anywhere August


• Career development with clear advancement paths


• Equity for all employees


• Hybrid work model & daily team lunch


• Health & wellness stipend + cell phone reimbursement


• 401(k) with employer match


• Parking (CA & WA offices) & pre-tax commuter benefits


• Employee Assistance Program


• Comprehensive onboarding (Cognitiv University)


• …and more!

What You’ll Find at Cognitiv

• Festiv – We make work fun with cross-team games, events, and creative team bonding.


• Responsiv – You’ll be close to clients and leadership, influencing real outcomes.


• Inclusiv – Diversity and individuality are celebrated across all levels.


• Inventiv – We reward curiosity and embrace bold ideas.


• Transformativ – We support your growth with training, mentorship, and flexibility.


• Collaborativ – We operate across coasts, connected by purpose and teamwork.

Cognitiv is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive workplace for all.

Note on AI Use: Cognitiv may use AI technology to assist with certain administrative aspects of the hiring process, such as note-taking, interview documentation, and reporting. However, every resume and application is reviewed directly by our recruiting team. AI tools are used solely for operational support and do not influence candidate evaluation or hiring decisions.