# Software Engineer II - Ads

**Company:** [Instacart](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/instacart)
**Location:** Remote
**Role:** Backend Engineering
**Salary:** CA$145k – CA$153k/yr
**Experience:** 3+ years
**Skills:** Go, Ruby, Python, API Design, Distributed Systems, Kafka, Dead-Letter Queues, AWS, GCP, Observability, Integration Testing, Data Reconciliation, Attribution, Entity Mapping, Ad Tech
**Posted:** 2026-09-09

> Build and operate publisher-facing backend features for Instacart’s Carrot Ads platform, spanning APIs, serving, reporting, and partner tooling. The role requires 3+ years of backend experience, distributed-systems and API expertise, and operational ownership.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Build and ship publisher-facing features across Storefront, Storefront Pro, and API partners, including API endpoints, serving inputs, reporting views, and configuration tooling.
- Extend the Connect / Carrot Ads API with clear contracts, robust event handling, dead-letter recovery, integration tests, and self-service documentation.
- Build retailer controls for relevance and quality-score inputs, reserve pricing, ad-load controls, and performance-tuning signals.
- Strengthen reporting and data integrity through attribution, catalog and product-ID mapping, reconciliation, and automated health checks.
- Improve partner reliability by defining and meeting SLAs, enhancing observability, reducing incidents and recovery time, and contributing to partner-health monitoring.
- Debug partner-facing serving and reporting issues across shared serving, measurement, and quality systems.
- Collaborate with Product, Enterprise Solutions, and Ads teams across Serving, Measurement, Ads Quality, and Ads Manager.
- Use AI-assisted developer tools while maintaining quality and security.

## Requirements
- 3+ years of experience building and operating production backend services.
- Strong API design and distributed-systems fundamentals.
- Fluency in a backend language such as Go, Ruby, or Python.
- Experience shipping features end to end with testing, observability, and operational ownership.
- Experience debugging across service boundaries and collaborating cross-functionally.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

## Nice-to-haves
- Experience in ad tech, retail media, or publisher- or partner-facing platforms.
- Familiarity with event streaming and reliability patterns at scale, including Kafka, dead-letter queues, and idempotent processing.
- Cloud infrastructure experience with AWS or Google Cloud, including data or measurement-adjacent systems.
- Experience with data reconciliation, attribution, or catalog and entity mapping.
- Experience building partner- or customer-facing APIs with documentation, error contracts, and integration test coverage.

## Compensation
- Base salary: CA$145,000–$153,000 CAD annually.
- Eligible for a new-hire equity grant and annual refresh grants.

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