Lead Engineer - Discovery

Storytelling is, and will always be, the heart of what we do at Skydance.
Our vision is to build a thriving entertainment ecosystem where stories and worlds are imagined, brought to life and experienced. We create for every age and audience, anchored by the strength of our content and experiences and the depth of our connection with fans. We are creator-first, audience-focused, tech-forward, globally scaled.

Here, you’ll work with talented teams that move fast, think boldly and collaborate with purpose to deliver results. We aim high, champion the best ideas and win together, earning the trust of our employees, creators, partners and audiences every day.

If you’re energized by the opportunity to help build the next-generation global media and entertainment company powered by creativity and technology, we’d be thrilled to welcome you aboard. LET’S GO!

Consumer Platform Engineering owns the API layer that sits between Paramount's client apps (Web, iOS, Android, Roku, CTV, Apple TV, Fire TV, and more) and the downstream content, identity, and commerce systems that power them. The org is organized into three domains — Identity & Commerce, Experiences, and Discovery. Discovery domain engineers build and operate the backend services powering content discovery across search, browse, recommendations, editorial curation, and content metadata. Our systems focus on helping viewers discover content at scale—delivering low-latency, high-concurrency services across millions of devices ranging from legacy TVs to modern streaming boxes. Role Summary We are hiring a Lead Engineer to be the senior technical anchor for a team of backend engineers building the services that power content discovery across Pluto TV and Paramount+. You will drive architecture and design for the domain's most complex initiatives, set the technical bar through hands-on coding and code/design review, and mentor engineers — while partnering with your Engineering Manager, Product, Data Science & Personalization, and adjacent platform domains to ship performant services that drive viewer engagement. This is a senior individual-contributor role: you lead through technical depth and influence, not through formal people-management authority. Responsibilities Technical Leadership & Architecture - - - - Drive the architecture and design for the domain's backend services and APIs (search, browse, recommendations, editorial curation, and content metadata), balancing feature delivery against platform health, scalability, and technical debt. Serve as the hands-on technical authority in design reviews — making the call on service boundaries, caching strategies, and data models for high-throughput systems, and staying close enough to the code to lead by example. Break large-scale architectural initiatives (such as personalization engine overhauls and new recommendation surfaces) into shippable, measurable phases, and personally lead delivery of the highest-complexity or highest-risk pieces. Set and enforce engineering standards for the team: code quality, testing practices, API design conventions, and documentation. Operational Ownership - - - Ensure backend services meet availability, low-latency, and high-concurrency targets for APIs consumed across Pluto TV and Paramount+ client apps. Lead on-call engineering practices, incident response, and postmortems for the team's services; be the senior escalation point for the most complex production issues. Define, track, and optimize operational KPIs (p99 latency, error rates, cache hit ratios, and API adoption), and drive the technical investments needed to keep them healthy. Cross-functional Partnership - - - Partner with Product Management and the Data Science & Personalization teams as the technical voice for the domain, translating engagement goals into concrete technical designs. Represent the team in cross-functional and cross-domain technical discussions with Identity & Commerce and Experiences, ensuring backend APIs integrate cleanly with entitlement, playback, and UI client layers. Communicate technical trade-offs, design decisions, and risks clearly to your Engineering Manager, peer leads, and non-technical stakeholders. Technical Mentorship & Team Enablement - Mentor and grow engineers on the team through code review, design pairing, and hands-on guidance — raising the technical level of the team over time. - Partner with the Engineering Manager on technical aspects of hiring (interviewing, technical bar-raising) and onboarding new engineers. - - Foster a culture of technical ownership and operational accountability, giving engineers context and room to drive their own implementation decisions. Support coordination with distributed or offshore engineering partners on technical execution and design alignment. Process & Delivery - - Contribute to and help run agile workflows (sprint planning, backlog grooming, retrospectives), with a focus on technical sequencing and de-risking dependencies. Own comprehensive documentation for system architecture, API contracts, domain data models, and operational runbooks. Qualifications Experience - - - 8+ years of software engineering experience, with a strong track record as a senior hands-on contributor on backend and distributed systems in streaming, media, e-commerce, or another high-traffic consumer platform. Demonstrated experience owning the design and delivery of high-concurrency APIs or platforms consumed at scale across heterogeneous client surfaces (web, mobile, legacy TVs, and modern streaming devices). Strong familiarity with core discovery domains: search indexing, recommendation pipelines, content metadata, or ranking systems. Technical Acumen - - - - Deep, current, hands-on expertise in distributed systems, API design, caching strategies, and data modeling for high-throughput, low-latency services. Ability to serve as the technical tie-breaker in architecture reviews — evaluating system trade-offs, service boundaries, and design choices under ambiguity, and defending decisions with data. Hands-on expertise with Java-based backend services, cloud infrastructure (GCP preferred), and modern CI/CD practices. Proven experience operating services under strict SLAs, leveraging metrics (p99 latency, error rates, cache hit ratios, A/B test data) to guide technical and operational decisions. Leadership & Collaboration - - - - Track record of mentoring and raising the bar for engineers through code review, design guidance, and pairing — without formal management authority. Strong communicator who bridges technical and non-technical partners — translating product visions into scoped, actionable technical designs. Skilled at navigating competing priorities across cross-functional groups, including Product Management, Data Science & Personalization, and adjacent platform teams. Comfortable working alongside geographically distributed engineering teams across time zones, including partner or offshore engineering teams. Mindset - - - Strong bias toward incremental, measurable delivery over big-bang system launches. Genuine curiosity about how content discovery and personalization drive viewer engagement — you care as much about the "why" (watch time, engagement) as the "how" (systems, APIs). Proactive ownership mindset toward operational health and system reliability, building resilient production services rather than just reacting to incidents. Preferred Qualifications - - - Hands-on experience with recommendation systems, ML-adjacent infrastructure, or search technologies (e.g., Elasticsearch, Solr). Prior experience in multi-brand or multi-app streaming platforms (AVOD, SVOD, FAST). Experience working alongside vendor and offshore engineering resources on technical delivery. 

Paramount Streaming, a division within Paramount Global, is the home to the company's direct-to-consumer services spanning free and paid in the form of Pluto TV and Paramount+. Pluto TV is the global leader in free ad-supported TV, delivering more than 1,400 global channels and an extensive library of streaming content, including live and original channels. Paramount+, digital subscription video-on-demand and live streaming service, combines live sports, breaking news, and A Mountain of Entertainment™. Paramount+ features an expansive library of original series, hit shows and popular movies across every genre from world-renowned brands and production studios, including SHOWTIME®.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Hiring Salary Range: $157,000.00 - 235,000.00. 

The hiring salary range for this position applies to New York, California, Colorado, Washington state, and most other geographies. Starting pay for the successful applicant depends on a variety of job-related factors, including but not limited to geographic location, market demands, experience, training, and education.  The benefits available for this position include medical, dental, vision, 401(k) plan, life insurance coverage, disability benefits, tuition assistance program and PTO or, if applicable,  as otherwise dictated by the appropriate Collective Bargaining Agreement. This position is bonus eligible.  

Skydance is an equal opportunity employer (EOE)

We embrace the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects a wide array of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences. Being an equal opportunity employer means that we take seriously our responsibility to consider qualified candidates on the basis of merit. In line with the laws of the country or region in which the role is based, this includes consideration without regard to race, color, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship status, religion or belief, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, pregnancy, parenthood, physical or mental disability, genetic information, military or protected veteran status, union status or any other category protected by applicable law.

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