Sr Principal, System Architecture (Digital AdTech)

Welcome to Warner Bros. Discovery… the stuff dreams are made of.

Who We Are…

When we say, “the stuff dreams are made of,” we’re not just referring to the world of wizards, dragons and superheroes, or even to the wonders of Planet Earth. Behind WBD’s vast portfolio of iconic content and beloved brands, are the storytellers bringing our characters to life, the creators bringing them to your living rooms and the dreamers creating what’s next…

From brilliant creatives, to technology trailblazers, across the globe, WBD offers career defining opportunities, thoughtfully curated benefits, and the tools to explore and grow into your best selves. Here you are supported, here you are celebrated, here you can thrive.

Your New Role:

The Senior Principal, System Architecture reports to the VP Engineering, Converged AdTech & Linear Systems and leads the architecture for WBD’s most critical advertising technology platforms. This role owns and drives the systems automation architecture of core adtech platforms to improve scalability, reliability, performance, and cost efficiency across the ecosystem. This role is accountable for the architecture, scalability, and operational excellence of systems spanning converged planning, linear and digital advertising, scheduling, and affiliate distribution. By architecting the platform rationalization, cloud migration, and next-generation AI/ML-enabled capabilities, the Principal ensures WBD’s ad-tech stack is positioned to maximize monetization, enable automation, and deliver premium advertising experiences across all platforms.

Your Role Accountabilities:

AI‑Driven & Agentic Systems Automation

Define and drive the long-term architecture for AI-powered and agentic systems across large-scale AdTech platforms.

• Architect autonomous and human-in-the-loop systems for deployment orchestration, infrastructure lifecycle, and incident response
• Establish guardrails for safe, observable, and governed AI adoption (reliability, explainability, failure handling)
• Integrate AI capabilities into core platform layers (decisioning, optimization, experimentation, operations)
• Drive standardization of agentic workflows across engineering and operations

Expectation: redefines how systems are built and operated using AI and not just adds features.

Platform Architecture & System Engineering

Own the design and evolution of foundational platforms with strong system engineering principles.

• Define architecture for core platforms (AdOps automation, optimization, identity, data, measurement, activation) with clear boundaries and contracts
• Apply system engineering rigor across reliability, scalability, fault isolation, and performance under extreme load
• Establish patterns for multi-region, high-availability, and disaster-resilient systems
• Drive platform standardization to reduce fragmentation and improve developer velocity

Expectation: builds platforms that are resilient, composable, and operable at scale.

Enterprise System Evolution & Convergence
Lead transformation of fragmented systems into a cohesive, converged AdTech ecosystem (linear + digital).

• Identify systemic bottlenecks across latency, data consistency, and cross-platform dependencies
• Drive simplification of system topology and elimination of redundant architectures
• Lead large-scale modernization (monolith → services, siloed systems → shared platforms)
• Ensure seamless interoperability across legacy and next-gen systems

 Expectation: reduces long-term complexity while enabling scale and agility.

Technology Strategy & Architectural Leadership

Shape the long-term technology direction and elevate architectural capability across the organization.

• Evaluate emerging technologies (streaming, distributed systems, AI infra, Agentic AI, privacy tech) for strategic adoption
• Mentor Principal engineers and architects on system design and trade-offs
• Establish architectural governance and decision frameworks

Expectation: builds both systems and the people who design them.

Technical Authority & Execution Influence
Act as the highest-level technical authority across critical initiatives.

• Review and approve architecture for high-impact, high-risk systems
• Influence execution across orgs without direct authority
• Intervene in complex programs to de-risk delivery and ensure architectural integrity
• Align engineering, product, and business stakeholders on critical trade-offs

Expectation: drives decisions that materially impact system and business outcomes

Qualifications & Experience

• Systems Architecture Leadership: 15+ years of experience architecting and scaling enterprise-grade data platforms, with a proven track record in large-scale ingestion, transformation, and activation pipelines.
• Automation Expertise: Experience automating high‑availability, high‑throughput production environments, leveraging AI and agentic architectures.
• Distributed Data Expertise: Advanced knowledge of open data Lakehouse formats (Iceberg, Delta, Hudi), distributed compute frameworks (Spark, Flink, Presto), and streaming technologies (Kafka, Kinesis, Pub/Sub).
• Cloud & Modern Architecture: Hands-on expertise in cloud-native data design (AWS, GCP, Azure), microservices, APIs, and serverless architectures; demonstrated success in modernizing legacy platforms into modular, cost-efficient systems.
• Identity & Audience Platforms: Familiarity with identity resolution, audience graphs, and cross-platform measurement systems in media, advertising, or adjacent high-scale transaction domains.
• Engineering Excellence: Deep knowledge of data engineering best practices, CI/CD automation, observability, data lineage, and governance frameworks that ensure reliability and compliance.
• Performance & Optimization: Skilled in cost modeling, benchmarking, and optimizing large-scale distributed systems for throughput, latency, and cost efficiency.
• Industry Awareness: Strong grasp of emerging trends in ad-tech, programmatic ecosystems, ML/AI-driven data products, and privacy-first architectures (GDPR, CCPA, VPPA).
• Partnerships & Ecosystem: Experienced in leading technical evaluations, vendor integrations, and collaborations with third-party data providers, cloud platforms, and open-source communities.
• Education: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical discipline required

How We Get Things Done…

This last bit is probably the most important! Here at WBD, our guiding principles are the core values by which we operate and are central to how we get things done. You can find them at www.wbd.com/guiding-principles/ along with some insights from the team on what they mean and how they show up in their day to day. We hope they resonate with you and look forward to discussing them during your interview.

Championing Inclusion at WBD

Warner Bros. Discovery embraces the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects a wide array of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences. Being an equal opportunity employer means that we take seriously our responsibility to consider qualified candidates on the basis of merit, regardless of sex, gender identity, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, marital status, pregnancy, parenthood, disability or any other category protected by law.

If you’re a qualified candidate with a disability and you require adjustments or accommodations during the job application and/or recruitment process, please visit our accessibility page for instructions to submit your request.