Playback Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

VERSANT (Nasdaq: VSNT) is an industry-changing media and entertainment business and home to trusted brands that shape culture, inform audiences, and build lasting connections. It operates across four core markets: political news and opinion, business news and personal finance, golf, and sports and genre entertainment. These markets are served through a powerful portfolio of iconic and innovative brands, including CNBC, MS NOW, USA Network, Golf Channel, Oxygen, E!, SYFY, and Versant's sports division USA Sports, along with complementary digital assets including Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow and GolfPass.

Versant’s Software Engineering team provides core services to our business, underpinning our strategy and execution of linear & digital distribution of content, platforms, and data. As a leader of our engineering team, you will have a direct role in defining our roadmap towards our future vision in the video landscape. 

The Senior Director, Platform Engineering is a senior technology lead responsible for the architecture, delivery, and operation of VERSANT’s service & video platform ecosystem across broadcast and digital products. 

This role owns the end-to-end content & video delivery stack, including client integrations and playback experiences, TV Everywhere (TVE) and direct-to-consumer (DTC) authentication and user flows, live and on-demand video pipelines, and observability across playback and streaming systems. 

Key Responsibilities 

• Platform Architecture & Strategy 

  • Define and own the architecture and long-term roadmap for content & asset delivery across web, mobile, and connected TV platforms. 
  • Establish scalable, resilient architectures  and drive standardization of platform components, APIs, and integration patterns across brands and properties. 
  • Evaluate and integrate internal & third-party technologies, CDNs, authorization systems, and observability tools. 

• Client & Playback Engineering 

  • Oversee development of client & video player frameworks and SDKs across multiple platforms (web, iOS, Android, CTV). 
  • Ensure seamless integration of playback experiences with authentication, personalization, and analytics systems. 
  • Optimize startup time, buffering, bitrate adaptation, and overall QoE across device types and network conditions. 

• Video Processing & Delivery Pipelines 

  • Lead engineering for live and VOD video workflows, including: 
  • Live encoding, packaging, and stream orchestration 
  • VOD ingest, transcoding, clipping, and publishing 
  • Asset management systems and metadata workflows 
  • Ensure systems support real-time and near-real-time workflows for live sports, news, and event-based programming. 
  • Implement solutions for advertising through DAI and core ad tech integrations across our platform landscape. 
  • Drive improvements in latency, reliability, and scalability of streaming pipelines. 

• Authentication, Authorization & User Flows 

  • Own architecture and delivery of TVE and DTC authentication systems, including identity, entitlement, and session management. 
  • Partner with product and analytics teams to optimize user flows for acquisition, activation, and retention. 
  • Ensure secure, scalable integration with MVPDs, identity providers, and subscription platforms. 
  • Integrate with personalization services and data platforms to provide user-specific context and optimizations. 

• Analytics, QoS & Observability 

  • Define and implement end-to-end observability strategy for enterprise systems, including: 
  • Platform ecosystem scale and resilience 
  • Playback analytics (QoE, QoS, engagement metrics) 
  • Stream health monitoring and alerting 
  • Real-time diagnostics for live events 
  • Establish SLOs for service performance and reliability, and drive continuous improvement through data-driven insights. 
  • Partner with SRE and data teams to build unified dashboards and operational visibility across the ecosystem. 

• Engineering Leadership & Delivery 

  • Build and lead high-performing engineering teams across client and backend services to support enteprrise initiatives and core platforms. Support some of the largest events in the media landscape, with scale and performance top of mind. 
  • Set engineering standards across system design, testing, release management, and operational excellence, consistent with enterprise practices. 
  • Drive execution across multiple concurrent initiatives, ensuring predictable delivery, high quality, and alignment with business priorities. 
  • Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement across teams. 
• Cross-Functional Partnership 
  • Partner closely with Product, Distribution, Ad Tech, Data, and Editorial teams to deliver integrated video experiences. 
  • Align with infrastructure, cloud, and DevOps teams to ensure scalable, reliable platform operations. 
  • Serve as a senior technical advisor to executive leadership on video strategy, platform investments, and industry trends. 

• 12+ years of experience in software engineering or streaming platforms supporting media, broadcast, or OTT environments. 

• Significant experience with system design & architecture, especially in serverless and event driven ecosystems with enterprise level scale and resilience. 

• Deep expertise in HLS/DASH, DRM, CDNs, encoding/transcoding, and player frameworks. 

• Familiarity with ad-supported video (AVOD) and monetization workflows. 

• Experience building large-scale video platforms for live and on-demand content.  

• Strong understanding of Identity, Personalization, Authentication and Subscription systems. 

• Expertise with analytics, observability, and performance monitoring. 

• Strong leadership and cross-functional collaboration skills. We value growth and mentoring to encourage personal growth and development of our teams. 

• Excellent communication and leadership skills, with the ability to operate at both executive and engineering levels. 

As part of our selection process, external candidates may be required to attend an in-person interview with a VERSANT Media employee at one of our locations prior to a hiring decision. VERSANT Media's policy is to provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, gender identity or expression, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, veteran status, membership in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran and require support throughout the application and/or recruitment process as a result of your disability, you have the right to request a reasonable accommodation. You can submit your request to candidateaccessibility@versantmedia.com.

VERSANT Media is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. We include a good faith pay range for each position to comply with applicable state and local pay transparency laws and to promote equity across our organization. Actual compensation will be based on factors such as the candidate's skills, qualifications, experience, and location and may include additional forms of compensation and benefits such as health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, etc.

VERSANT Media is not accepting unsolicited assistance from search firms for this employment opportunity. All resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at VERSANT via-email, the Internet, or in any form and/or method without a valid written Statement of Work in place for this position from VERSANT's Talent Acquisition team will be deemed the sole property of VERSANT. No fee will be paid in the event the candidate is hired by VERSANT as a result of the referral or through other means.