Sr Principal, System Architecture

About the role

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 com

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