Senior Staff Data Engineer (Ad Tech Team - AWS experience required)

This on-site, Silver Spring, MD based role focuses on designing and delivering high-scale data pipelines that process billions of ad events daily for Warner Bros. Discovery. The Senior Staff Data Engineer establishes technical standards for distributed data engineering, drives modernization of legacy workflows into cloud-native systems, and ensures data used for monetization and decisioning is reliable, secure, and cost-efficient.

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain ingestion, ETL, and activation pipelines supporting real-time and batch processing of multi-billion event datasets.
• Optimize data workflows for latency, reliability, and scalability in cloud-native environments.
• Modernize legacy ad-tech systems into open, lakehouse-based architectures (Iceberg, Delta, Hudi) for unified analytics and monetization.
• Embed observability, data lineage, and automation frameworks to reduce technical debt and improve resiliency.
• Partner with Data Science to operationalize ML models for forecasting, optimization, and personalization.
• Ensure downstream data delivery into ad servers, identity systems, and activation platforms is low-latency and privacy-compliant.
• Act as a domain expert in distributed systems, streaming, and big data engineering.
• Mentor junior engineers, share best practices, and elevate engineering standards across global teams.

Requirements

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
• PhD preferred for advanced expertise in distributed systems or statistical optimization.
• 12+ years of experience designing and operating enterprise-scale data platforms with high-throughput pipelines.
• Hands-on expertise with AWS/GCP/Azure, open table formats (Iceberg, Delta, Hudi), and distributed compute (Spark, Flink, Presto).
• Deep knowledge of Kafka, Kinesis, or Pub/Sub for powering low-latency ingestion and activation.
• Skilled in CI/CD, automation, observability, and governance frameworks for enterprise-grade data engineering.
• Familiarity with advertising workflows including forecasting, yield optimization, identity, and campaign execution.
• Demonstrated ability to partner with data scientists, product, and platform engineering, while mentoring junior engineers.

Technologies

• AWS
• GCP
• Azure
• Iceberg
• Delta
• Hudi
• Spark
• Flink
• Presto
• Kafka
• Kinesis
• Pub/Sub

Benefits

• Health insurance
• Employee wellness program
• Life and disability insurance
• Retirement savings plan
• Paid holidays
• Sick time
• Vacation
• Annual bonuses
• Short-term incentives
• Long-term incentives
• Program-specific awards

Your New Role

The Senior Staff Data Engineer is accountable for designing and delivering data pipelines that process billions of ad events daily across Warner Bros. Discovery's global ecosystem. This role sets technical standards for distributed data engineering, drives modernization of legacy workflows into modular cloud-native systems, and ensures mission-critical data is delivered reliably, securely, and cost-efficiently for monetization and decisioning.

How We Get Things Done

Warner Bros. Discovery operates under guiding principles that shape how work is approached. The full set of principles is published at www.wbd.com/guiding-principles/, which also includes team insights on how these values show up in day-to-day activities. These principles are central to interview discussions and day-to-day collaboration.

Championing Inclusion at Warner Bros. Discovery

Warner Bros. Discovery embraces the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences. We are an equal opportunity employer, considering qualified candidates on the basis of merit without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, mental or physical disability, marital status, citizenship status, or other protected characteristics.

Compensation

Pay range: USD 161,070 - 299,130 per year. Actual salaries vary based on factors including market data, internal equity, location, skill set, experience, and performance. Base pay is one component of Warner Bros. Discovery’s total compensation package.