Video Playback Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Do you buy on Amazon, but go elsewhere to watch product videos before you buy? Do you watch product reviews, unboxing videos, and product comparison videos before you decide to buy? Video has taken on an increasingly central role in online shopping by enabling shoppers to experience products before they buy. We are the team that ensures shoppers don't have to go anywhere else to get the video content they need to make confident purchasing decisions on Amazon.com - we are the Integrated Video Experience (IVE) team.
At IVE, we're on a mission to revolutionize the way customers use video to shop on Amazon.com. We believe that video has the power to inspire, educate, and delight shoppers, enabling them to experience products before they buy. As a key member of our dynamic, startup-like team within Amazon, you'll have the opportunity to shape the future of video-driven commerce.
We are looking for a skilled Front End Engineer (FEE) to join our Distribution team responsible for building Amazon.com's shoppable video experiences. In this role, you'll develop and optimize interactive video features across desktop, mobile web, and app surfaces that empower customers to make informed shopping decisions through immersive, information-rich video content. You will work on a player that supports closed captions, jump links, hotspots, related products and related videos, and interactive elements like helpful votes, share, and report functions. Additionally, you'll help enable inline playback, which seamlessly integrates video into our product discovery experience as customers browse the page.
Key job responsibilities
- Design and build performant, accessible video UI components and widgets across desktop, mobile web, and app platforms.
- Own front-end architecture decisions for video distribution surfaces, ensuring reusability, scalability, and maintainability.
- Develop interactive video features including closed captions, clickable jump links, hotspots, carousels, and related product displays within the shoppable video player.
- Optimize front-end performance for fast load times, smooth playback, and responsive interactions across devices and browsers.
- Implement instrumentation to measure key video engagement metrics such as watch time, interaction rates, and feature usage, collaborating with the data team to drive continuous improvement.
- Partner with UX designers, product managers, and backend engineers to translate requirements into polished, accessible customer experiences.
- Enable partner teams across Amazon to integrate video-viewing capabilities into their surfaces, providing technical guidance and reusable components.
- Participate in and lead design reviews, code reviews, and operational excellence initiatives within the team.
A day in the life
As an FEE, you will focus on creating scalable, performant video shopping experiences that reach millions of Amazon customers daily. You will work within a large organization and interact with senior engineers, applied scientists, UX designers, product managers, and partner teams. You will own features end-to-end from the front-end perspective, prototype new interactions, evaluate technical feasibility, and help reinvent the video experience on Amazon.
You will disambiguate complex business requirements, propose elegant UI solutions, and build components that other teams can adopt. You will establish a deep understanding of product strategy and technical implementation details to represent your team's capabilities to partner teams across Amazon.
About the team
The Distribution team is responsible for planning, designing, experimenting with, and delivering all customer-facing video discovery and viewing experiences on Amazon's platforms. Our key objectives are:
- Innovate and develop the various distribution points where shoppers can find and access videos, enhancing the overall video discovery and viewing experience.
- Design, implement, and continuously improve user interfaces and content strategies to optimize video playback and related downstream shopping capabilities.
- Enable partner teams across Amazon to seamlessly integrate video-viewing capabilities into their use cases, providing guidance and support to ensure a consistent and high-quality customer experience.
- Explore new avenues for video distribution, leveraging emerging technologies and customer insights to stay at the forefront of video innovation in e-commerce.
- Foster a culture of experimentation, data-driven decision making, and customer obsession to deliver exceptional video experiences.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- 4+ years of non-internship professional front end, web or mobile software development using JavaScript, HTML and CSS experience
- 3+ years of computer science fundamentals (object-oriented design, data structures, algorithm design, problem solving and complexity analysis) experience
- Experience using JavaScript frameworks such as angular and react
- Experience with responsive design, as well as cross-browser development and testing
- Experience building rich data-driven web applications by consuming RESTful services and APIs
- Strong understanding of front-end performance optimization, accessibility standards, and best practices.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Master's degree in computer science or equivalent
- Experience with video encoding and streaming media standards
- Experience debugging and systems analysis to identify and quickly resolve or mitigate issues
- Experience with CSS pre-processors (SASS/LESS), CSS frameworks, and modern build tools (Webpack, Vite, or similar).
- Understanding of interactive video UI/UX principles, including closed captions, video navigation, and user feedback features.
- Experience instrumenting software with real user metrics to reflect the customer experience.
Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.
Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you're applying in isn't listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.
The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.
USA, WA, SEATTLE - 143,700.00 - 194,400.00 USD annually