Staff Software Engineer

Who We Are:

SiriusXM and its brands (Pandora, SiriusXM Media, AdsWizz, Simplecast, and SiriusXM Connect) are leading a new era of audio entertainment and services by delivering the most compelling subscription and ad-supported audio entertainment experience for listeners – in the car, at home, and anywhere on the go with connected devices. Our vision is to shape the future of audio, where everyone can be effortlessly connected to the voices, stories and music they love wherever they are.  

This is where a diverse group of emerging talent and legends share authentic and purposeful songs, stories, sounds and insights through some of the best programming and technology in the world. Our critically acclaimed, industry-leading audio entertainment encompasses music, sports, comedy, news, talk, live events, and podcasting. Regardless of their role, each of our employees is vital in bringing SiriusXM’s vision to life daily.

SiriusXM Media is the gateway for marketers to North America's most prominent digital audio advertising ecosystem. As the combined advertising revenue organization of SiriusXM Holdings Inc., SiriusXM Media spans across leading owned and operated audio platforms Pandora and SiriusXM; innovative ad tech solutions powered by AdsWizz; sonic creative consultancy Studio Resonate; and an extended content network featuring exclusive monetization agreements with Audiochuck, NBC Universal, SoundCloud, and many more. Reaching more than 150 million listeners each month, SiriusXM Media delivers audiences the tailored brand experiences they crave while putting creators first, making it easy for every marketer to produce, plan, buy and measure across its entire audio universe. 

AdsWizz, a subsidiary of SiriusXM, is the leading global provider of digital audio and podcast advertising solutions. AdsWizz is the underlying monetization solution for well-known music platforms, podcasts, and broadcasting groups worldwide, giving advertisers of all sizes unprecedented access to premium and niche audio content. Through dynamic ad insertion, advanced programmatic platforms, and innovative audio formats, AdsWizz efficiently connects buyers and sellers for digital audio and podcast advertising. AdsWizz is a global company with a presence in over 40 countries and a Technology Development Hub in Bucharest, Romania.

How you’ll make an impact: 

As a Staff Software Engineer, you will join a highly performing-team of engineers who build, own, and maintain backend services and products. You will design, collaborate, and execute building the AdsWizz products at scale while automating and providing insights into the data onboarding with the SXM Media and AdsWizz services. 

What you’ll do:

• Provide technical leadership for the requirements, analysis and design and implementation of the most used Audio Streaming Server in the world - AIS, written in C/C++

• Provide technical leadership for the requirements, analysis, design and implementation of the AIS Managed Service Platform, built on top of AWS technologies and Go programming language

• Design and build high-performance, stable, scalable AdsWizz systems that will be deployed in an enterprise setting.

• Lead high-level architecture discussions and planning sessions.

• Work with various teams of engineers building software in a collaborative development process.

• Execute tasks with utmost clarity and precision, demonstrating a strong sense of ownership and providing clear direction to drive projects forward effectively.

• Serve as a mentor, foster a collaborative environment and encourage and guide team members by being honest and direct. 

• Collaborate with the Product team to clarify the scope of the projects.

• Collaborate with the Global Operations teams to ensure flawless production deployments and support the Incident Management team.

• Responsible for tech interviewing on demand 

• Mentor senior engineers and elevate overall engineering practices within the organization

• Take ownership of complex production issues, performing deep root cause analysis and implementing systemic improvements.

• Define and enforce performance, scalability, and reliability standards across services.

What you'll need:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering, or a related field.

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with deep expertise in modern C++ (C++14/17/20), including advanced memory management, multithreading, concurrency models, and performance optimization.

• Proven experience designing, architecting, and scaling high-performance distributed systems, with a strong focus on low latency, high throughput, and fault tolerance.

• Demonstrated ownership of large-scale backend systems or critical infrastructure components, driving architectural direction across teams.

• Strong understanding of distributed systems principles, including:

  • Consistency models

  • Backpressure handling

  • Load shedding

  • Circuit breaking

  • Idempotency

  • Observability-driven design

  • Failure recovery strategies

• Extensive experience identifying, profiling, and resolving performance bottlenecks at system level (CPU, memory, I/O, network), using industry-standard tooling (perf, flamegraphs, valgrind, etc.).

• Strong expertise in designing and scaling audio/video streaming and/or transcoding services, including high-concurrency streaming workloads and CDN-integrated architectures.

• Deep understanding of streaming protocols and delivery architectures (HLS, HTTP-based streaming, RTMP/RTSP, ICY), including segment lifecycle, bitrate ladders, and server-side ad insertion considerations.

• Experience designing and maintaining secure, versioned public APIs, with strong knowledge of REST principles, API security (OAuth2, token-based systems), and API lifecycle management.

• Proficiency in constructing and communicating detailed software architecture diagrams and technical documentation for cross-team collaboration.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities, with a systems-level approach to debugging and continuous optimization.

• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction across multiple teams and mentor senior engineers.

• Proven ability to research, evaluate, and introduce new technologies or architectural patterns when appropriate.

• 5+ years of experiencedesigning and operating streaming and/or high-throughput backend systems in cloud environments (AWS preferred), with hands-on experience in cloud-native design principles.

• Experience with advertising-related protocols and real-time bidding systems (OpenRTB, VAST) is a strong plus, particularly in latency-sensitive ad-delivery environments.

• Designing and operating high-concurrency streaming services capable of handling large-scale client connections.

• Architecting and scaling transcoding pipelines and media processing workflows.

• Designing resilient cloud-native microservices with strong emphasis on performance and reliability.

• Working with cloud platforms (AWS preferred), including infrastructure patterns for high availability and multi-AZ deployments.

• Designing and maintaining public-facing APIs with strict SLA requirements.

• Working with relational databases (MariaDB/MySQL preferred) and/or NoSQL systems, with understanding of indexing strategies and query performance tuning.

• Implementing and optimizing caching layers (Redis, Memcached) for high-performance workloads.

• Building event-driven architectures using messaging platforms (Kafka, AWS EventBridge, Kinesis).

• Deploying and operating containerized workloads (Docker, Kubernetes), including performance-aware container resource tuning.

• Designing observability frameworks using Prometheus, Grafana, ELK or similar tooling, with strong production diagnostics practices.

• Applying security best practices in backend systems (OAuth2, token validation, secure communication).

• Experience with Rust, particularly in performance-critical components.

• Experience with Go or Python in supporting services or tooling ecosystems.

• Hands-on experience with streaming servers such as Shoutcast, Icecast, Wowza, or equivalent.

• Deep knowledge of media container formats and codecs (MP3, MP4, H264, AAC, MPEG), including performance and compatibility tradeoffs.

• Experience with transcoding and packaging tools (ffmpeg, AWS Elemental).

• Experience with advanced AWS services (S3, Lambda, API Gateway, EKS, Kinesis, SQS, etc.).

• Experience designing automated integration and performance testing strategies for backend systems.

• Experience with advertising protocols such as VAST, OpenRTB, and real-time bidding architectures.

Our offer – what’s in it for you:

• Casual & friendly working environment with opportunities to impact the company with your ideas and involvement

• Technology diversity, interesting technical exposure in building the best ad-tech product on the market

• Corporate annual bonus system to celebrate personal and company wins 

• Individual training budget to use as you like for skill improvement

• Sports bonus for activities such as gym, biking, and yoga

• Meal tickets card for enjoyable lunch breaks 

• Gift cards for special events and holidays

• Days off for your birthday and special events to recharge and enjoy your BIG moment 

• Private medical subscription to keep you healthy 

• Private Pension Fund (Pillar III) based on your years of tenure 

• Free library subscription for the book lover in you 

• Suitable hardware devices (new laptops / Macs, displays etc.) 

• Parking lots at office location  – 60% co-funded by the company

• Company offsites, CSR activities, and getaways to stay connected and keep the flame alive 

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 based on 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.

The requirements and duties described above may be modified or waived by the Company in its sole discretion without notice.

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R-2026-03-28