Technical Lead, TA Operations

The Trade Desk is a global technology company and the world’s leading independent platform for digital advertising, with nearly 4,000 employees across more than 30 offices. Our technology helps advertisers reach the right audiences across the open internet — from streaming TV and podcasts to mobile apps, news, and more. Advertising powers the content people love. By making it more transparent, effective, and responsible, we help support trusted journalism, quality entertainment, and creators worldwide. The world’s brands and agencies rely on us to reach their customers and grow their businesses responsibly. The scale of our platform brings unique technical challenges — from processing massive datasets in real time to building systems that operate reliably on a global scale. When you work here, your impact is worldwide. We welcome diverse perspectives, encourage curiosity, and build teams that learn from one another. If you’re driven to solve meaningful challenges, we’d love to meet you. Talent Acquisition (TA) Operations is building the systems, data, and AI capabilities that power the future of hiring at The Trade Desk. This role is focused on advancing recruiting science, insights, and AI-driven innovation by architecting and integrating the technical infrastructure and data pipelines that make it possible. You'll own the technical direction for these tools and data products, partnering closely with TA leadership, Recruiting Operations, and Engineering to turn ambiguous business problems into working, validated solutions. The ideal candidate is a builder who enjoys solving complex business challenges through technology. You're equally comfortable designing systems, integrating platforms, automating workflows, and applying AI to create meaningful business impact. You thrive in ambiguity, move quickly from concept to execution, and are passionate about creating solutions that make work easier and more effective. What You'll Do Own the technical direction for a talent acquisition platform capability that leverages AI and workflow automation, covering architecture, technology choices, data models, and engineering standards, from requirements through production release. Design, build, and maintain full-stack applications and operational tools end to end, from development through testing and deployment. Partner with People Systems and Business Engineering teams to integrate recruiting and HR systems of record (e.g., Greenhouse, Workday, CRM/TRM tools), keeping data pipelines accurate and in sync. Design and build AI-powered tools, agents, and automations that improve recruiting quality and productivity, continuously evaluating emerging AI capabilities and translating them into practical, adopted solutions. Partner closely with stakeholders within and outside of the Talent Acquisition team to translate business challenges into scalable technical solutions. Act as a trusted technical partner to non-technical stakeholders: gather requirements, set expectations, communicate trade-offs, and incorporate feedback through iteration. Who You Are 5+ years of experience designing, building, and scaling business systems, applications, or automation/data platforms, including at least 1–3 years working directly within a Talent Acquisition or Recruiting Operations function. Experience owning technical leadership for a system or platform, setting architecture and engineering standards, and driving delivery from design through production. Strong full-stack engineering ability, with experience in modern web app development (e.g., React, TypeScript, Node/Express or similar), APIs, and data architecture. Experience integrating systems and building data pipelines across platforms, with strong attention to data-model correctness and source-of-truth consistency. Demonstrated ability to translate ambiguous business requirements into scalable technical solutions, end to end. Strong analytical and systems-thinking skills, with the judgment to know when to…