Weekend Backend Engineer Jobs in Chicago, IL (NOW HIRING)

FreeWheel, a Comcast company, provides comprehensive ad platforms for publishers, advertisers, and media buyers. Powered by premium video content, robust data, and advanced technology, we’re making it easier for buyers and sellers to transact across all screens, data types, and sales channels. As a global company, we have offices in nine countries and can insert advertisements around the world.

Job Summary

The Manager, Software Engineering (Tier-2) leads the Buyer Cloud Tier-2 Engineering team and provides technical and operational leadership for the Buyer Cloud platform. This hands-on leadership role is responsible for the availability, latency, performance, efficiency, change management, monitoring, emergency response, and operational excellence of the Buyer Cloud platform. The manager drives end-to-end operational support across Buyer Cloud services, partners closely with Engineering, Engineering Support, Client Services, Product, and other cross-functional teams, and ensures timely resolution of customer-facing production issues. The Manager will develop deep expertise in the Buyer Cloud business domain, system architecture, and application workflows to lead complex technical investigations, drive automation, operational improvements, and continuously improve platform reliability and customer experience. This role combines technical leadership, people management, and operational ownership while remaining actively engaged in production support and engineering initiatives.

Job Description

Core Responsibilities:

• Lead and develop the Buyer Cloud Tier-2 Engineering team by providing technical leadership, coaching, mentoring, performance management, and career development
• Own end-to-end operational support for the Buyer Cloud platform, ensuring platform reliability, operational readiness, and customer satisfaction
• Partner closely with Engineering and Engineering Support teams to investigate complex production issues, drive root cause analysis (RCA), remediation planning, and long-term reliability improvements
• Provide hands-on technical leadership during major production incidents, customer escalations, and Live Events, coordinating cross-functional teams to drive timely resolution and stakeholder communication
• Collaborate with Client Services, Product, Engineering, and external partners to deliver scalable and reliable technical solutions
• Drive operational excellence through continuous improvements in incident management, monitoring, automation, observability, and engineering support processes
• Lead complex customer escalations and technical investigations across Buyer Cloud services
• Build and prioritize automation initiatives that improve operational efficiency and reduce manual effort
• Analyze operational metrics, incident trends, platform health, and customer issues to identify risks and drive continuous service improvements
• Establish operational best practices, documentation standards, and knowledge-sharing processes across the Tier-2 organization
• Participate in release planning, production readiness reviews, deployment validation, and post-release monitoring
• Participate in on-call rotations and provide technical leadership during critical production incidents when required
• Consistent exercise of independent judgment and discretion in matters of significance.
• Regular, consistent and punctual attendance. Must be able to work nights and weekends, variable schedule(s) as necessary.
• Other duties and responsibilities as assigned.
   

Preferred Technical Qualifications:

• Strong coding, debugging, and troubleshooting skills in Go (Golang), Python, and/or Java
• Experience developing, operating, and supporting distributed systems and cloud-native backend services
• Strong understanding of distributed architectures, microservices, APIs, and large-scale production environments
• Proficiency in SQL and database technologies
• Experience supporting applications in AWS or OCI, including services such as EC2, VPC, S3, IAM, Route 53, and Lambda
• Experience with automation, monitoring, observability, and incident management platforms
• Familiarity with CI/CD and SDLC tools (Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins, Git, Ansible)
• Strong Linux, networking, database, and infrastructure fundamentals
• Experience leading complex technical troubleshooting, root cause analysis (RCA), and operational improvements
• Demonstrated ability to balance hands-on technical responsibilities with people management

Core Competencies/Behaviors:

• Strong technical leadership with a hands-on approach to solving complex production problems
• Proven ability to lead, coach, mentor, and develop engineering teams
• Strong customer-first mindset with the ability to balance customer experience, business priorities, and technical excellence
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills across Engineering, Product, Client Services, and leadership teams
• Strong ownership with the ability to drive cross-functional alignment and operational improvements
• Analytical thinker with a focus on operational excellence, automation, and continuous improvement
• Ability to make sound technical and operational decisions in high-pressure production environments
• Collaborative leader who builds strong partnerships across Engineering, Engineering Support, Product, Client Services, and Support teams

Employees at all levels are expected to:

• Understand our Operating Principles; make them the guidelines for how you do your job.
• Own the customer experience think and act in ways that put our customers first, give them seamless digital options at every touchpoint, and make them promoters of our products and services.
• Know your stuff be enthusiastic learners, users and advocates of our game-changing technology, products and services, especially our digital tools and experiences.
• Win as a team make big things happen by working together and being open to new ideas.
• Be an active part of the Net Promoter System a way of working that brings more employee and customer feedback into the company by joining huddles, making call backs and helping us elevate opportunities to do better for our customers.
• Drive results and growth.
• Support a culture of inclusion in how you work and lead.
• Do what's right for each other, our customers, investors and our communities.

Disclaimer: This information has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees in this role. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities and qualifications.

Comcast is an equal opportunity workplace. We will consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

Skills:

Amazon Web Services (AWS); Distributed Systems; Operational Excellence; Software Development; Production Troubleshooting; Engineering Leadership

Salary:

Primary Location Pay Range: $137,369.30 - $206,053.95

Comcast intends to offer the selected candidate base pay within this range, dependent on job-related, non-discriminatory factors such as experience. The application window is 30 days from the date job is posted, unless the number of applicants requires it to close sooner or later.

Base pay is one part of the Total Rewards that Comcast provides to compensate and recognize employees for their work. Most sales positions are eligible for a Commission under the terms of an applicable plan, while most non-sales positions are eligible for a Bonus. Additionally, Comcast provides best-in-class Benefits to eligible employees. We believe that benefits should connect you to the support you need when it matters most, and should help you care for those who matter most. That’s why we provide an array of options, expert guidance and always-on tools, that are personalized to meet the needs of your reality - to help support you physically, financially and emotionally through the big milestones and in your everyday life. Please visit the compensation and benefits summary on our careers site for more details.

Education

Bachelor's Degree

While possessing the stated degree is preferred, Comcast also may consider applicants who hold some combination of coursework and experience, or who have extensive related professional experience.

Relevant Work Experience

5-7 Years