Senior Backend Engineer, Ads Platform

Bolt is shaping a future where cities are built for people, not cars.

What started as an ambitious project of a 19-year-old in 2013 has grown into a global mobility platform used by more than 200 million customers and 4.5 million driver and courier partners across 50 countries.

From ride-hailing and food delivery to scooters, e-bikes, and car-sharing, Bolt helps people move through cities every day.

Small, autonomous teams drive this work, combining the speed and ownership of a startup with the scale of a global technology company backed by more than €1bn in funding.

And we're just getting started.

• Why join Bolt
• Build the future of mobility and help transform how people live and move in cities.
• Tackle challenges at scale that span technology, operations, regulation, and growth.
• Take real ownership early. Small, lean teams mean your decisions matter from day one, and you'll learn fast alongside some of the best people in the industry.
• Join one of Europe's leading technology companies, backed by world-class investors including Sequoia.

About The Role

We are building an advertising and monetization platform that enables merchants and brands to reach customers through sponsored listings, banners, and targeted promotions across Bolt Food.

As a Backend Engineer, you will drive the development of the core systems powering Ads — from building scalable services for ad serving, bidding, and pricing, to integrating sponsored content into our existing ranking and delivery infrastructure.

You'll design and implement high-performance APIs, real-time decision systems, and data pipelines that ensure ads are relevant, efficient, and seamlessly embedded into the user experience.

This is a foundational role: you'll be one of the early engineers shaping the Ads & Monetization platform, working closely with Product, Data Science, and other Engineering teams to define architecture, establish best practices, and build systems that scale with the business.

• Main Tasks And Responsibilities
• Architect, design, and operate scalable, low-latency services for ad serving, auctions, bidding, and pricing across Bolt Food
• Integrate sponsored listings, banners, and targeted promotions into Bolt's existing ranking and delivery infrastructure
• Build real-time decision systems and data pipelines for targeting, relevance, budget pacing, and campaign reporting, ensuring accurate billing and spend tracking
• Design high-performance APIs for merchants, advertisers, and internal teams
• Set the technical direction for the Ads & Monetization domain and establish engineering standards as one of its founding engineers
• Partner with Product, Data Science, and Commerce to take ads features from idea to launch

About You

• You have solid backend engineering experience and a track record of designing and shipping scalable, reliable, high-throughput systems
• Experience with ads platforms, real-time bidding/auctions, marketplaces, search/ranking, or recommendation systems is a strong advantage
• You feel at home with microservice architecture and are experienced in API design, possess a solid understanding of algorithms and data structures, and care about latency and performance trade-offs
• Experience with event streaming, data pipelines, or experimentation/A-B testing is a plus
• You have empathy for stakeholders and end-users, and thrive in an environment with a fast feedback cycle
• Previous technical leadership or tech-lead experience is a plus
• Why you’ll love it here
• Accelerate your professional growth with unique career opportunities. Be the one of founding engineers of a new and complex product
• Enjoy a rewarding salary and stock options, knowing that as Bolt succeeds, so do you.
• Take care of your physical and mental health with our wellness perks.
• Celebrate 5 years at Bolt with a 1-month paid sabbatical to recharge.
• Connect with colleagues at annual company events and smaller team gatherings.
• Balance flexibility and in-person collaboration with our hybrid model, including at least 12 monthly in-office days.

At Bolt, using AI daily is a baseline expectation for everyone.

If there’s a faster, smarter way to do your work, we expect you to find it.

You’re still responsible for the output, so the standard stays high when using AI tools.

Experience is great, but what we really look for is drive, intelligence, and integrity.

So even if you don’t tick every box, please consider applying!

Everyone is welcome

Bolt is an equal opportunity employer.

We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace where all qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to race, colour, nationality, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or disability.

We welcome applications from all backgrounds and are happy to make reasonable accommodations throughout our hiring process. If you require any adjustments, please let us know.

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