---
title: 'Platforms Engineering Manager at Samba'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/platforms-engineering-manager-samba-warsaw-56ydac4ebchg'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-19'
---

# Platforms Engineering Manager at Samba

- **Company:** Samba
- **Location:** Warsaw, Poland
- **Employment:** internship
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-09-28
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-19
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/sambatv/94e6c322-9b6a-426f-b640-5feca6243aa0

## Job description

Samba is a media intelligence company. We know what the world is watching, reading, and thinking about — in real time, at scale, across every screen. Our data exists with the consent of over a billion people, organized into the most complete picture of consumer attention ever built. The biggest brands in the world use that picture to make smarter decisions. We think it’s the most interesting data asset on the planet, because it’s the most culturally relevant.

Jaya, our CTO, has nine people reporting straight to her in Platforms and zero managers underneath. That's the gap. Platforms is Samba's shared-services org - infra, cloud, and data platforms - built for the transformation the company's mid-way through: converting exciting semi-monolithic applications into completely new architecture supporting agentic solutions. Nobody else owns this. Every product team builds on what Platforms ships. Sneak peek: in the next six months this splits further. You'd start as frontline manager for the Sama Data Platform and Cloud team. Once Platforms hires its VP, the org resettles around two managers and two architects reporting in above you, across what's becoming a 16-18 person department.

## What you'd actually do

Own your department's roadmap - not execute someone else's. Decide where to invest, run technology face-offs, and make the case for why. You'd manage day-to-day for a small team now, and you need to be able to pick up a help-desk-level ticket yourself when it counts - this isn't a hire who stays a layer above the work.

The harder part is everyone outside your team. Platforms doesn't own a product, it owns the infrastructure every product team is forced to build on - so you'll hear from roughly 80 people with opinions about why it's not good enough, and you need to convince them to adopt what you're building instead of just absorbing the complaints.

What you need to already be good at

- Technical enough to pass our architecture challenge  - we're not asking for architect-level depth, but you need to be credible in the room, not just managing it.

- AWS, but we also have our own data center, and GCP

- Kubernetes

- Terraform and Python

- Comfortable owning a roadmap and making technical calls, not just running standups.

- A real communicator - this job is cross-team persuasion as much as it is management.

We're specifically not looking for someone with 3-6 years of straight people-management experience. We'd rather hire someone technical who wants to grow into this - startup, small-team, or adjacent-industry background over big-tech-with-a-roadmap-already-built. We'll train you into the management side alongside Talent.

Bonus points

Background in a startup or small, fast-moving team · comfortable being the most senior technical voice in the room without being the most senior architect · experience translating "our infra sucks" complaints into an actual roadmap decision

Not for you if

- You want the roadmap handed to you - there isn't one yet, you're building it

- You need to be a "professional manager" who doesn't get hands-on. Our CTO own words: "we're too small to just have professional managers"

- You get defensive instead of curious when 80 people are telling you your infrastructure isn't working for them

How we judge you, and how it goes

Same five things every Samba hire is scored on: Determined yet Resilient, Naturally Curious, Low Ego, Self-aware, Results Oriented.

## Why now

Samba's Series C, ~$100M raised, pre-IPO, growing 30% YoY, 18 years in. Platforms is being built out aggressively right now to carry the company's shift from legacy to agentic AI product lines ahead of 2027.

Samba is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.  We strive to empower connection with one another, reflect the communities we serve, and tackle meaningful projects that make a real impact.

Samba may collect personal information directly from you, as a job applicant, Samba may also receive personal information from third parties, for example, in connection with a background, employment or reference check, in accordance with the applicable law. For further details, please see Samba's Applicant Privacy Policy. For residents of the EU , Samba Inc. is the data controller.

## About Samba

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Samba (formerly Samba TV) is a media intelligence company that uses AI and first-party deterministic data from 1.5 billion people to power cross-screen TV and digital advertising measurement, targeting, and analytics for the world's largest brands, publishers, and platforms.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series B)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2008
- **Founders**: Ashwin Navin (Co-founder & CEO), Alvir Navin (Co-founder & COO)

## Core Business
- **Primary Industry**: Media Intelligence / Advertising Technology / Data & Analytics
- **Target Customers**: B2B — primarily Enterprise (global brands, agencies, publishers, and platforms like Disney, Havas Media, and "the vast majority of top global brands")
- **Mission Statement**: Unite TV, digital, and behavioral data through AI to power faster, more accurate media decisions.

## Products & Services
- **Samba Analytics**: Independent cross-screen measurement using first-party data for deduplicated reach, frequency, and performance outcomes. Allows optimization of campaigns while they are still in-flight.
- **Samba Audiences**: Exclusive audience segments and Private Marketplaces (PMPs) built from Samba's deterministic cross-screen signals for effective targeting.
- **Samba Knowledge Graph**: AI-powered mapping of interests, behaviors, and purchase intent, linking content to 1.5 billion real people, devices, and households.
- **Samba ID**: A universal identity solution linking content to real people and devices across screens.
- **Samba AI**: Contextually analyzes and indexes all media content, including brand logo detection on TV.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Total Funding**: $75.7M USD across 9 rounds
    - Last known round: Series B ($30M, June 2017, led by Union Grove Venture Partners and Disney Accelerator)
    - Other notable rounds: Series A ($7M, February 2012, led by August Capital)
- **Key Metric**: Owns first-party TV and web data for 1.5 billion people globally.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: August Capital, Union Grove Venture Partners, Disney Accelerator. Strategic clients include Disney, Havas Media, and "every platform and publisher you need."
- **Growth Signals**: Acquired Semasio in 2024, becoming the only provider owning both TV and web first-party data. Rebranded from "Samba TV" to "Samba" in 2026. Global workforce of 251 employees (+20.1% YoY growth). Operations span 6 countries with 13 offices.

## Competitive Advantages
- **First-Party Data Moat**: Nearly two decades of proprietary, deterministic data from smart TVs (24 brands, 48M devices) and web (1.5B people), creating a unique and un-copyable dataset.
- **Full-Funnel Integration**: The only provider to combine TV and web first-party data (after acquiring Semasio), offering planning, measurement, and activation in one platform.
- **AI-Powered Knowledge Graph**: Goes beyond traditional media measurement by mapping interests, behaviors, and purchase intent, enabling contextual analysis without relying on third-party cookies.

## Strategic Focus
- **Platform Expansion**: Evolving from a TV data provider into a comprehensive "media intelligence" company (rebranded in 2026).
- **Cross-Screen Unification**: Connecting TV and digital data to provide a complete view of audience behavior across all screens.
- **AI & Contextual Intelligence**: Deepening investment in AI for content analysis, brand detection, and predictive audience targeting.
- **Global Scale**: Operating across six continents and expanding direct partnerships with major platforms and publishers.

## Why Work Here
- **Founder-Led Culture**: Described as having "startup intensity and enterprise impact," with a "culture that values ownership over hierarchy and outcomes over optics."
- **Global & Distributed**: Teams span San Francisco (HQ), New York, London, Hamburg, Sydney, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, Warsaw, Taipei, and Amsterdam. Officed with a global, collaborative ethos.
- **Engineering & Data-First**: Ships products that "touch billions of signals daily." A strong emphasis on data science, engineering, and product roles.
- **Compensation & Benefits**: Competitive base salary, equity participation, performance bonuses, generous parental leave, flexible PTO, annual learning budgets, home office stipend, and best-in-class hardware.
- **Culture Values** (from company career page): Determined & Resilient, Self-Aware, Naturally Curious, Low Ego, Results Oriented.
- **Employee Rating**: 3.9/5.0 on LinkedIn (172 reviews), with Work-Life Balance at 3.9, Compensation at 3.8, and Culture at 3.8.

## Sources
1. [samba.com](https://samba.com/about-samba) — About Samba / Company History
2. [samba.com](https://samba.com/careers) — Careers Page / Culture & Benefits
3. [samba.com](https://samba.com/) — Home Page / Product & Platform Overview
4. [linkedin.com/company/sambatv](https://www.linkedin.com/company/sambatv) — LinkedIn Profile (Company Details, Size, Financials)
5. [jobs.lever.co/sambatv](https://jobs.lever.co/sambatv) — Lever Careers Page (Open Roles)

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