The Global Programmatic Lead (Programmatic Architect) is the senior technical practice leader for Programmatic Media across Jellyfish, sitting within the Domain Specialists hub and reporting to the Chief Solutions Officer - Media, Strategy & AI (CSO). You are the global custodian of how Jellyfish architects, engineers, automates, and commercialises programmatic activation across DSPs, SSPs, curation layers, bidding algorithms, and data clean rooms.
This is a senior role, there is no direct line management or people management but you are expected to collaborate with activation team leads & regional media leadership to affect positive change for Jellyfish clients. You are not running campaign ops or managing direct reports; you are the agency’s most senior programmatic technologist and systems architect. You define the global practice, codify frameworks for scaled delivery, contribute to our proprietary product roadmap, lead high-stakes pitches to win new business, drive technical advancement through strategic ad-tech partnerships, and serve as principal technical counsel to our highest-value global enterprise clients.
You partner closely with regional media and delivery leads across NA, EMEA, and APAC. While regional delivery teams execute programmatic campaigns in their local markets, you set the technical architecture, bidding methodologies, automation workflows, and delivery standards they operate from.
50% Product, Commercial & Technical Partnerships · 50% Client Strategic & Technical Leadership
The role is an intentional 50/50 split:
- 50% Practice & Product Architecture: Designing buying & audience strategies, automation hooks/MCP integration, steering ad-tech integration roadmaps, managing top-tier tech partnerships (Google, The Trade Desk, Amazon, etc.), and spearheading major pitches.
- 50% Client Strategic Leadership: Serving as principal programmatic strategist and trusted technical advisor for Tier-1 accounts, driving technical maturity (signal resilience, clean rooms, custom algorithms) and unlocking incremental retained revenue.
1. Product Strategy, Automation & Technical Partnerships (50%)
- Define the Global Programmatic Methodology: Own and update the global programmatic playbook, codifying standards across audience intelligence, bidding, algorithmic optimisation, curated marketplaces (PMPs/PG), dynamic creative optimisation (DCO), and identity/signal resilience.
- Codify Delivery & Drive Automation: triage execution into fully automated, hybrid, or human-assisted workflows, handing off artefacts to delivery and MSP teams to streamline campaign build times and eliminate operational friction.
- Contribute to Proprietary Product Evolution: Partner directly with Jellyfish Product teams to feed technical requirements, data schemas, and API automation hooks into internal tooling.
- Ad-Tech Partnerships & Frontier Innovation: Own strategic technical relationships with core platforms (DV360, The Trade Desk, Amazon, Google, premium SSPs, retail ad networks, clean rooms). Secure first-mover advantage on platform alphas and betas, testing them technically and translating them into deployable client solutions.
- Product-Centric New Business: Architect winning product narratives, bespoke tech architectures, and commercial frameworks for major pitches and RFPs. Lead the programmatic discipline in tier-1 global pitches, driving high pitch-win rates and expanding retained scope.
- Cross-Discipline Integration: Architect the connective programmatic layer across Search, Social, Retail Media, GEO, and Creative, building unified full-funnel activation frameworks (e.g., audience syncing, cross-channel frequency management, closed-loop attribution).
2. Client Strategic & Technical Leadership (50%)
- Principal Technical Counsel for Tier-1 Clients: Act as the lead advisor for CMOs, Heads of Media, and MarTech executives at enterprise accounts - translating complex programmatic engineering into board-level growth strategies.
- Drive Client Programmatic & AI Maturity: Actively advance Tier-1 clients along the programmatic maturity curve.
- Brief Validation & Technical Governance: Serve as the technical filter on complex client briefs, ensuring brief feasibility and alignment with modern media architectures before execution.
- Thought Leadership & External Voice: Represent Jellyfish as a category authority through POVs, white papers, analyst briefings, industry summits, and keynotes on topics like cookieless addressability, agentic media buying, and AI-driven curation.
