Storytelling is, and will always be, the heart of what we do at Skydance.

Our vision is to build a thriving entertainment ecosystem where stories and worlds are imagined, brought to life and experienced. We create for every age and audience, anchored by the strength of our content and experiences and the depth of our connection with fans. We are creator-first, audience-focused, tech-forward, globally scaled.

Here, you’ll work with talented teams that move fast, think boldly and collaborate with purpose to deliver results. We aim high, champion the best ideas and win together, earning the trust of our employees, creators, partners and audiences every day.

If you’re energized by the opportunity to help build the next-generation global media and entertainment company powered by creativity and technology, we’d be thrilled to welcome you aboard. LET’S GO!

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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 secure, 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

About Skydance

Skydance is a next-generation global media and entertainment company, comprised of three business segments: Studios, Direct-to-Consumer, and TV Media. Skydance's portfolio unites legendary brands, including Paramount, Warner Bros., HBO and HBO Max, Paramount+, Pluto TV, CBS, CNN, CBS Sports, TNT Sports, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, MTV, Food Network, BET, HGTV, and Comedy Central.

Some Important Details

We embrace 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. In line with the laws of the country or region in which the role is based, this includes consideration without regard to race, color, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship status, religion or belief, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, pregnancy, parenthood, physical or mental disability, genetic information, military or protected veteran status, union status or any other category protected by applicable 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.

📌 Sr Principal, System Architecture (Digital AdTech) (Hyderabad)
🏢 Warner Bros. Discovery
📍 Hyderabad