---
title: 'Principal Engineer at Valid'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/principal-engineer-valid-united-states-z2egxk5baqnd'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-05'
---

# Principal Engineer at Valid

- **Company:** Valid
- **Location:** United States
- **Compensation:** $220k–$280k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-05-29
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-05
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/valid/c761108d-0eb7-4cd5-a039-6c0082d31dfe

## Job description

## ABOUT VALID

Valid is one of the fastest-growing AI-native marketing companies. We’re building the company that replaces the traditional marketing agency.

We help brands grow across Meta, TikTok, Google, and TV by combining software, AI agents, creative production, and media buying into a single system. Every day, we launch, measure, and iterate on advertising campaigns at a speed that traditional agencies can’t match.

Our team operates at the intersection of AI video, filmmaking, performance marketing, and engineering. We believe the future of marketing isn’t people or AI, it’s people working alongside AI systems to produce better work, faster.

The model is already working. Valid manages more than $40M in annualized advertising spend and partners with some of the fastest-growing consumer and technology companies, including Replit, Rover, Tolan, and others. Since launching, we’ve consistently won head-to-head against incumbent agencies by delivering better performance and moving faster.

Backed by Canaan, Neo, Steve Huffman, Scott Banister, and other leading investors and operators, we’re building the next generation of marketing.

THIS ROLE IS FOR YOU IF YOU'RE:

- Seasoned in architecting and implementing high scale and throughput systems
- Accomplished in leading engineering teams in delivering game-changing products
- Skilled at partnering with product and business counterparts in roadmap and decisioning
- Relentless in managing resources and allocation towards yielding optimal outcomes

## PRINCIPAL ENGINEER IN A NUTSHELL

You are the top day-to-day engineer at Valid. You reside at the confluence of all technical decisions, partnering with the CTO to determine engineering direction on both macro and micro scales. You thoughtfully operate at the cusp between hands-on software development, high-level design, and technical leadership. You lead and mentor our engineering team in executing and delivering against our aggressive roadmap, and as Valid's prospects and mandate grow, so too do your role and responsibilities. In short, your execution and dedication as Principal Engineer will be a key factor in Valid's success.

## KEY QUALIFICATIONS

- Experience: 6+ years software engineering experience with a strong focus on system architecture of large-scale, performant distributed systems
- Technical Leadership: 3+ years leading technical teams, setting engineering standards, and driving architectural decisions in an agile environment
- Engineering Excellence: Mastery in Python (our day-to-day operating language) and a second-nature commitment to engineering best practices (e.g., CI/CD, testing, fault-tolerance)
- Cloud and Infrastructure: Hands-on experience managing and deploying cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud) and orchestration tools (e.g., k8s, Docker)
- Familiarity with AI/ML: Proficient knowledge of AI and machine learning platforms/APIs, frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch), and algorithms
- Cross-functional Collaboration: Track record of optimizing technical outcomes that account for engineering, product, and business partners and requirements

## NICE TO HAVE

- 2+ years in adtech or martech engineering in a senior capacity
- 2+ years in early-stage (pre-Series B) startups
- 2+ years as an engineering people manager

## WHAT WE OFFER

- Salary: We strive to make offers in the 90th-plus percentile of similar stage/trajectory companies for the level offered
- Equity: Generous grants commensurate with experience and company stage
- Benefits: 401k, healthcare, FSA, meals (when in-person)
- Workplace: Remote-possible with a preference for IRL in our San Francisco headquarters
- Impact: A foundational opportunity to revolutionize the landscape of digital advertising, forever
- Growth: Active support in growing your career, skills, and outcomes in tandem with the growth of our business
- Culture: A mission-driven organization where contributions are honored, diversity in experience and background is recognized, and disruption is core to everything we pursue

YOU'RE PROBABLY A GOOD FIT IF:

- Applying the latest tech in novel ways to delight customers excites you, and your goal is to maximize ownership
- You want to join something early-stage and can thrive in an environment of organized chaos:
- Organized: Build with purpose, work efficiently, communicate clearly, especially in writing.
- Chaos: We think the best place to learn is in market and will do what it takes to ship as quickly as possible.

THIS ROLE MIGHT NOT BE A FIT IF:

- You don't enjoy wearing multiple hats
- You don't enjoy mentoring others
- You dislike navigating ambiguity

## About Valid

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Valid is an AI-native, full-stack ad agency that combines AI-generated creative, automated media buying, and custom data infrastructure to manage the entire advertising lifecycle for mobile apps, B2B SaaS, and e-commerce brands.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed-stage; raised $7.3M total, including a $5.5M seed round led by Canaan Partners)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA
- **Founded**: Not publicly disclosed (team grew from 5 to 40+ in the last 12 months, suggesting a founding around 2023–2024)
- **Founders**: Not publicly disclosed

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Advertising / Marketing (AI-enabled ad agency)
- **Target customers**: B2B (enterprise consumer brands, mobile apps, e-commerce); clients include Replit, Tolan, HoneyHomes, Rover, Quittr, SettleMate, Wayk
- **Mission / purpose**: “Make sophisticated advertising accessible to businesses of all sizes” and build an agency meant to last 100 years.

## Products & Services
- **Performance Creative**: Fully AI-generated short-form video ads engineered to drive sales; 20+ creatives per month, concept-to-account in 3 days.
- **AI-Influencers**: Custom-branded influencer accounts with real posts, real following, and full organic reach; includes whitelisting and partnership rights; 20 posts per month.
- **Media Buying**: Deployment and management of client ad spend across Meta, TikTok, TV, Google, Snap, AppLovin, and more; continuous optimization of targeting, placements, and budgets.
- **Custom Performance Dashboard**: Cross-platform analytics connecting to Meta, TikTok, Google, Snap, and all DTC attribution sources; includes a chat-with-your-ads MCP server.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private company)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding $7.3M (seed); team headcount grew from 5 to 40+ in the last 12 months; $1B+ cumulative ad spend deployed across major platforms
- **Notable Investors / Partners**: Canaan Partners (lead), Neo, JVentures, Steve Huffman (CEO of Reddit), Scott Banister (inventor of search ads)
- **Growth Signals**: Double-digit month-over-month growth; enterprise clients with real budgets at scale; case studies show –84% CPA cut, +1,156% profitable spend scale, 2.2x blended ROAS

## Competitive Advantages
- **Full-stack, AI-native approach**: Engineering, creative, and media buying operate as one tightly integrated team, enabling faster iteration and compounding learnings.
- **Custom internal tooling**: AI agents, data pipelines, and a proprietary dashboard that give marketers full visibility and automation – not just off-the-shelf SaaS.
- **Outcome-driven model**: Valid charges based on performance (ever-positive returns on ad spend), aligning incentives with clients.
- **Pixar-like creative production**: Uses AI video generation tools (Kling, Seedance) combined with human intuition to produce ads that convert.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale the team and platform**: Aggressively hiring across engineering, AI, creative, and marketing to extend the AI-native agency model.
- **Deepen automation**: Building AI agents that make a single marketer as effective as a 20–30 person agency team.
- **Expand into new verticals**: Already serving mobile apps, B2B SaaS, and e-commerce; aiming to make sophisticated advertising accessible to businesses of all sizes.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Fast-paced, startup intensity with cross-disciplinary learning – engineers gain advertising intuition, media buyers think in systems, creatives read performance data.
- **Remote / Hybrid**: Remote-friendly with synchronous PT hours; product and engineering teams prefer in-person at the San Francisco Union Square office. Two-thirds of the team is remote.
- **Perks**:
  - Competitive base salary + equity
  - Excellent medical, dental, and vision insurance
  - 401(k)
  - Unlimited PTO
  - Lunch stipends for in-office employees
  - $1,000 equipment stipend
  - Team off-sites (e.g., Honolulu and Las Vegas in 2025)
- **Tech Stack**: Claude Code/CoWork, Kling, Seedance, Cursor, Linear, PaperClip – you’re expected to try new tools.
- **Diversity of roles**: Senior Software Engineer, Principal Engineer, AI Creative Director, Creative Strategist, Performance Marketing roles, and more.

## Sources
1. [valid.co/careers](https://www.valid.co/careers)
2. [valid.co](https://www.valid.co/)
3. [linkedin.com/company/validco](https://www.linkedin.com/company/validco)
4. [tracxn.com](https://tracxn.com/d/companies/valid/__5aY_jcKNbRFNhmLl20JnBD_jWYcGgXd6LHGzg-sVghc)
5. [valid.co/valid-seed-round](http://valid.co/valid-seed-round)

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