Staff Software Engineer, Python

Role Description

As a Staff Software Engineer on the Planning team within SiriusXM’s Ad Sales Product Engineering organization, you’ll define and drive the technical direction of our ad buying systems.

• Architect resilient, cloud-native backend services that power large-scale ad delivery and campaign planning tools across the SiriusXM and Pandora ecosystem.
• Shape engineering practices — leading modernization, scalability, and reliability initiatives that move our ad tech platforms forward.

What you’ll do:

• Lead the design and development of scalable, maintainable services that power ad buying and the complicated parts to it.
• Architect and evolve the Slingshot platform toward modern and cloud-native paradigms.
• Drive end-to-end execution — from design and implementation to deployment, monitoring, and performance optimization.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Data Engineering, DevOps, and SRE to deliver high-impact, integrated ad buying capabilities.
• Partner with data, UI, billing, and ad trafficking teams to optimize end-to-end ad buying workflows through intelligent automation.
• Champion observability, reliability, and operational excellence using Datadog, Grafana, and modern CI/CD practices.
• Mentor engineers across teams, fostering a culture of technical rigor, inclusion, and continuous improvement.
• Influence long-term architecture and technology strategy, aligning with SiriusXM’s broader ad tech roadmap.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 2+ years in a Staff or equivalent senior technical leadership role.
• Expertise in Python (Django, FastAPI, or similar frameworks) and backend architecture (e.g. microservices).
• Strong foundation in distributed systems and data pipelines, with hands-on experience in Kafka, Celery, or Airflow.
• Experience with ad serving or delivery platforms (e.g., Google Ad Manager, AdsWizz, Triton).
• Deep familiarity with AWS, Kubernetes, and infrastructure automation.
• Proficiency with observability tools (Datadog, Sentry, Grafana) and CI/CD workflows.
• Demonstrated success leading cross-team technical initiatives, mentoring engineers, and influencing large-scale architecture.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Must have legal right to work in the U.S.

Requirements

• At SiriusXM, we carefully consider a wide range of factors when determining compensation, including your background and experience. These considerations can cause your compensation to vary.
• We expect the base salary for this position to be in the range of $106,600 to $200,000 and will depend on your skills, qualifications, and experience.
• This role might be eligible for discretionary short-term and long-term incentives.

Benefits

• Our goal at SiriusXM is to provide and maintain a work environment that fosters mutual respect, professionalism and cooperation.
• SiriusXM is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of actual or perceived race, creed, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, alienage or citizenship status, age, disability or handicap, sex, gender identity, marital status, familial status, veteran status, sexual orientation or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local laws.