Director, Back-End Engineering

Company Description

Publicis Groupe is a global leader in communication and is positioned at every step of the value chain, from consulting to execution, combining marketing transformation and digital business transformation. Through a unified and fluid organization, Publicis Groupe partners with its clients across communication, media, data and technology to ensure access to the full breadth of capabilities in every market. Present in over 100 countries, Publicis Groupe employs around 103,000 professionals.

Job Description

We are seeking a Director level Backend Engineer to architect, build, and lead the backend systems that power scalable, multi cloud AdTech and MarTech platforms, analytics execution, and AI driven workflows.

This role carries end to end technical ownership for backend architecture and execution layers—designing the services, APIs, and protocols that connect data, analytics, activation, and operational systems. The ideal candidate combines deep distributed systems expertise, strong platform engineering judgment, and the ability to lead complex technical initiatives across teams and domains.

Why This Role Matters

This role sits at the core of the organization’s technology and intelligence platforms. The Director of Backend Engineering will define how data, analytics, AI, and activation systems connect, scale, and operate, enabling faster innovation, safer automation, and durable competitive advantage.

Responsibilities

Platform & System Architecture

• Architect and own scalable, multi cloud backend platforms that integrate AdTech and MarTech systems across planning, activation, measurement, and optimization
• Define system level architecture patterns for distributed services, event driven workflows, and execution layers
• Design backend systems that support high throughput, low latency, and fault tolerant operations at enterprise scale
• Establish architectural standards for interoperability, extensibility, and long term platform evolution

Backend Services & Execution Layers

• Design and lead development of backend services that support execution, orchestration, scheduling, monitoring, and operational control
• Build and manage services that bridge analytics, ML models, agent workflows, and activation systems
• Own service lifecycle management including versioning, backward compatibility, and deprecation strategies
• Ensure backend systems are secure, observable, and production ready

API & Integration Strategy

• Define and own API strategy across internal and external systems, including REST and event based interfaces
• Design integration patterns for connecting internal platforms with commercial AdTech and MarTech ecosystems
• Establish clear contracts, schemas, and governance for cross system communication
• Lead development of shared backend tooling that accelerates partner and platform integrations

AI Agent & Protocol Enablement

• Design and lead development of a flexible backend stack to support AI agents and intelligent workflows
• Define tools, APIs, and protocols that enable agents to interact with data, models, and execution services
• Partner with data science and product teams to productionize agent driven workflows safely and at scale
• Ensure agent systems operate within clear guardrails for security, auditability, and control

Technical Leadership & Ownership

• Act as the senior technical authority for backend and platform engineering decisions
• Lead and mentor senior engineers and architects across backend and platform teams
• Collaborate closely with product, data engineering, analytics, and infrastructure leaders
• Drive technical roadmap planning and prioritize platform investments aligned to business goals

Qualifications

Backend & Platform Engineering

• Extensive experience designing and operating large scale backend systems and distributed architectures
• Strong expertise in API driven system design, service orchestration, and execution platforms
• Deep understanding of microservices, event driven architectures, and asynchronous processing
• Experience operating backend systems in multi cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP)

Programming & Frameworks

• Advanced proficiency in backend languages such as Python, Java, Scala, or similar
• Experience building production grade services using modern backend frameworks
• Strong understanding of concurrency, performance optimization, and system reliability

AdTech / MarTech & Integration Experience

• Proven experience integrating AdTech and/or MarTech systems, platforms, or APIs
• Familiarity with activation, measurement, identity, and optimization workflows
• Experience designing backend systems that connect analytics and decisioning to execution environments

AI, Analytics & Agent Enablement

• Experience supporting ML, analytics, or AI driven platforms at the backend level
• Familiarity with agent based systems, orchestration frameworks, or model execution pipelines
• Ability to design backend systems that safely operationalize AI and automated decisioning

Operational Excellence & Governance

• Strong experience with observability, monitoring, logging, and incident management
• Experience implementing security, access control, and data governance in backend systems
• Ability to balance speed, reliability, and long term maintainability in platform design

Leadership & Collaboration

• Demonstrated success operating at a Director level of technical ownership
• Ability to lead complex, cross team engineering initiatives
• Strong communication skills with both technical and executive stakeholders

Additional Information

Our Publicis Groupe motto “Viva La Différence” means we’re better together, and we believe that our differences make us stronger. It means we honor and celebrate all identities, across all facets of intersectionality, and it underpins all that we do as an organization. We are focused on fostering belonging and creating equitable & inclusive experiences for all talent.

Publicis Groupe provides robust and inclusive benefit programs and policies to support the evolving and diverse needs of our talent and enable every person to grow and thrive. Our benefits package includes medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401K, as well as parental and family care leave, family forming assistance, tuition reimbursement, and flexible time off.

If you require accommodation or assistance with the application or onboarding process specifically, please contact

Compensation Range: $135,375.00 - $216,684.00 annually. This is the pay range the Company believes it will pay for this position at the time of this posting. Consistent with applicable law, compensation will be determined based on the skills, qualifications, and experience of the applicant along with the requirements of the position, and the Company reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time. Temporary roles may be eligible to participate in our freelancer/temporary employee medical plan through a third-party benefits administration system once certain criteria have been met. Temporary roles may also qualify for participation in our 401(k) plan after eligibility criteria have been met. For regular roles, the Company will offer medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401k, and paid time off. The Company anticipates the application deadline for this job posting will be 04/27/2026.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

Veterans Encouraged to Apply.

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