Senior Backend Ads Engineer - HTS Media Services Job at Hopper in Boston

About HTS Media

HTS Media is Hopper’s advertising and media division, built to help travel brands, destinations, and suppliers connect with travelers at scale. We power advertising placements across Hopper’s app and through our B2B partner network, which includes global brands like Capital One Travel and TripAdvisor. Our mission is to build the travel industry’s leading retail media network, turning advertising into a major driver of profitability for Hopper and our partners, much like Instacart, Uber, and Amazon have done in their sectors.

We’re still in the early stages of our roadmap, yet HTS Media has already become one of Hopper’s fastest‑growing and most profitable business units. The engineering team plays a pivotal role in scaling the platform, ensuring our ad tech products deliver measurable impact for advertisers and seamless experiences for travelers.

About The Role

As a Senior Backend Engineer on the HTS Media team, you will be a core contributor to the engine that powers our entire advertising platform. You will be responsible for designing, building, and scaling the high‑throughput, low‑latency services that handle ad requests, run auctions, and serve millions of relevant offers to travelers in real time.

You will tackle complex challenges inherent to the ad tech space, from optimizing our real‑time bidding (RTB) logic to ensuring millisecond response times under heavy load. You will serve as a technical leader, mentoring other engineers, driving architectural decisions, and setting the standard for high‑quality, scalable code. If you are passionate about building distributed systems that operate at a massive scale, this is the role for you.

Responsibilities

• Build the Core Engine: Design, develop, and deploy high‑performance microservices for ad serving, targeting, and bidding.
• Optimize for Scale and Speed: Obsess over system performance, identifying and eliminating bottlenecks to ensure our services meet stringent low‑latency requirements.
• Ensure High Availability: Build resilient, fault‑tolerant systems and implement robust monitoring to maintain rock‑solid reliability.
• Drive Technical Excellence: Lead architectural discussions, conduct code reviews, and champion best practices in software development.
• Collaborate for Impact: Partner closely with product managers, data engineers, and the rest of the engineering team to ship cohesive, high‑impact features.
• Mentor and Lead: Provide technical guidance and mentorship to other engineers on the team, helping to level up the entire organization.

Experience

• 5+ years of professional software development experience, with a focus on building distributed, backend systems.
• Direct experience in ad tech or retail media is required. This includes familiarity with concepts such as ad serving, real‑time bidding, and ad campaign management.
• Proven track record of designing and operating high‑throughput, low‑latency services in a cloud environment.
• Strong experience with high‑performance databases and caching systems.
• Deep understanding of system design, data structures, and algorithms.
• A strong sense of ownership and the ability to thrive in a fast‑paced, entrepreneurial environment where you can make a significant impact.

Perks And Benefits Of Working With Us

• Well‑funded and proven startup with large ambitions, competitive salary and pre‑IPO equity packages.
• Unlimited PTO.
• Carrot Cash travel stipend.
• Access to co‑working space on demand through FlexDesk and work‑from‑home stipend.
• Generous parental leave above industry standards.
• Entrepreneurial culture where pushing limits and taking risks is everyday business.
• Open communication with management and company leadership.
• Small, dynamic teams = massive impact.
• 100% employer paid medical, dental and vision coverage for employees.
• Access to disability & life insurance.
• Health Reimbursement Account (HRA), DCA/FSA and access to 401(k) plan.