Staff Backend Software Engineer - Performance

Streaming TV is no longer just a brand awareness channel. It’s becoming a core part of the performance marketing mix, alongside search and social. Vibe.co is building the platform that makes TV work like the rest of the acquisition stack: targeted, measurable, and optimized for results.

Vibe.co is an Audience First Streaming TV Advertising platform that gives marketers the tools to reach the right audiences, optimize campaigns in real time, and understand what’s actually driving business outcomes. With hyper-targeted segmentation, AI-powered recommendations, real-time optimization, and incrementality measurement, Vibe brings the precision and accountability of digital advertising to the biggest screen in the house.

Today, more than 12,000 brands use Vibe.co to reach 120 million+ households. And in August 2026, Vibe.co became a Walmart company, opening up a new chapter for the business and the industry. With Walmart’s first-party data and purchase signals now part of the Vibe platform, advertisers can connect TV advertising to real-world transactions and measure the impact of CTV with a level of precision previously associated with platforms like Google and Meta.

This is a unique moment to join Vibe. With Walmart’s scale, data, and reach behind us, we’re building the next generation of TV advertising and creating a more measurable, performance-driven future for the channel.

About the Role

You'll join the Performance team the engineers who own advertiser outcomes at Vibe. Bidding, pacing, and the prediction stack that drives both. You'll report to Clément Schiano, Engineering Manager for Performance.

This role exists because our roadmap is clear and the bottleneck is execution. We have a knowledge concentration problem too: critical expertise sits with one person, which creates fragility. We need someone who can absorb, challenge, and extend that knowledge not just ship tickets.

Three reasons someone great would want this job:

1. CTV performance advertising is still being invented. The auction dynamics, identity graph, and feedback loops are nothing like display or search. There's no playbook to copy you'd be writing it.

2. You own the full decision loop. From prediction to bid price to pacing, on a product real advertisers depend on today. Your judgment shapes the direction. You'll see the impact in the numbers within weeks.

3. The timing is right. Past "does this work?" and into "how fast can we scale this?" Early enough to shape the architecture. Late enough that you're not building on sand.

What You'll Do

Own the pacer and bidder

• Go deep on the bidder and pacer stack map it end-to-end and identify at least one fragility worth owning on day one

• Propose improvements to the bidder or pacer autonomously from problem definition through to design proposal

• Ship measurable improvements to CPx, pacing accuracy, or win rate within your first three months

Raise the team's ceiling

• Distribute critical system knowledge: make the team faster and less dependent on any single person

• Challenge existing designs, including inherited ones, and push for cleaner solutions

• Deepen expertise in the theoretical foundations (probabilistic modelling, PID control theory) powering our approaches

Move at Vibe pace

• Use AI tooling as a genuine force multiplier (not a crutch, not a checkbox)

• Iterate in production, not in your head, we - ship, measure and adjust

What You Need

• Shipped backend systems in a strongly typed language C++, Rust, Go, Scala, Java, or equivalent at production scale

• Debugged distributed systems under real traffic: latency issues, consistency failures, the works

• Worked inside a DSP, SSP, or bidder: you understand auction mechanics from the inside

• Built or tuned pacing algorithms or PID controllers theory and implementation, not just awareness

• Solid grounding in probabilistic reasoning and statistical modelling you think in distributions, not just averages

Nice to Haves

• Experience in a scale-up environment you know what fast and resource-constrained actually feels like

• ML systems in production: feature pipelines, model serving (not just training notebooks)

• Real-time data pipelines and low-latency architectures at scale

• Redis, Kafka, or equivalent under meaningful load

Our Values

At Vibe, we run on three values: Impact, Ambition, and Urgency. We tie every goal to a real business outcome, think 10x rather than settling for good enough, and move daily rather than waiting for perfect conditions.

You'll thrive here if you own outcomes without needing direction, default to action, and hold yourself to results, not effort.

This is a high-performance environment with high-performance rewards: you'll work alongside people who push you, with real ownership over hard problems in a market that's moving fast.

If that sounds like the best version of your career, we want to meet you.

What We Offer

For candidates based in France, the pay range for this role is €127,000-€171,000. We will support relocation to Paris for great candidates.

• Variable pay — Based on real Vibe business goals.

• Hybrid flexibility — We're in the heart of Paris and our team is in 3x a week!

• Health insurance — Full coverage via Alan.

• Meal vouchers — Via Swile.

• Annual offsite — The whole team, once a year, somewhere worth the trip.

• Tech Syncs — Engineering and Product meet in person at least quarterly, worldwide.

Our Interview Process

We respect your time. Here's exactly what to expect — no surprises, no ghosting.

1. Recruiter screen — 30 min. We'll share context; you'll share yours.

2. Manager interview — Meet the person you'd work with directly.

3. Technical Coding Interview and Systems Design Interview

4. Calibration interview — A senior leader joins to ensure we're holding a consistent, high bar.

5. Offer — Fast. We don't let good decisions sit.

6. Reference checks — Two calls, handled with discretion.

Equal Opportunity

Vibe is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

We believe the best ideas come from teams with different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or interview process, please let us know.

Referral Instructions

Being referred? Ask your contact to submit your application directly on your behalf.