Lead Software Engineer

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!

Location: San Francisco – Onsite

About This Role

Welcome to Paramount Streaming — the team behind Paramount+, home to a mountain of entertainment for audiences around the globe. We bring together iconic brands, compelling content, and technology to deliver streaming experiences to millions of viewers.

We’re hiring a Lead Software Engineer on the AI Engagement Engine team. This is a senior individual contributor role with no direct reports. You’ll build native Apple experiences that support content discovery and personalization within the Paramount+ and Pluto TV applications, integrating real-time personalization signals across key touchpoints.

You’ll partner with backend, ML, data, product, and platform teams to deliver reliable, scalable experiences across iOS and tvOS. You’ll own complex technical problems, contribute to client architecture, and work with existing technical leadership to strengthen engineering standards.

AI fluency is a core requirement for this role. We’re looking for someone who uses AI coding assistants and agents daily and understands how to work effectively with context, tools, Model Context Protocol (MCP), and agent harnesses. You should be comfortable explaining your workflows, evaluating AI-generated output, and recognizing when human review is needed.

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership

• Contribute to decisions on architecture, frameworks, and tooling for iOS and tvOS applications in partnership with team leads and senior peers.

• Evaluate new technologies and adopt approaches that improve engineering quality and productivity.

• Translate product goals into technical requirements and manageable, shippable work.

• Explain technical decisions and trade-offs clearly.

Application Development

• Design, build, debug, and ship native iOS and tvOS features.

• Improve performance, reliability, and accessibility across the app experience.

• Build client experiences for personalization and recommendations in partnership with ML and backend teams.

• Integrate APIs and personalization signals into responsive, data-driven interfaces.

AI-Assisted Engineering

• Use AI coding assistants and agents such as Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, or equivalent tools daily to design, write, review, test, and refactor code.

• Use MCP integrations to connect AI tools with relevant engineering tools and data sources, with appropriate access controls.

• Work with agent harnesses to manage context, instructions, tool execution, and human review.

• Validate AI-generated code through review and testing, investigate failures, and recognize when a different approach is needed.

• Share useful workflows, skills, plugins, and lessons learned with teammates.

Mentorship and Collaboration

• Help improve code quality through code reviews, design reviews, and pairing.

• Mentor and unblock engineers through technical guidance and collaboration.

• Partner with product, design, data, backend, and other client teams to define and deliver features.

• Build constructive working relationships and communicate clearly with technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Ownership and Delivery

• Own features and technical problems from requirements through delivery and follow-up.

• Manage concurrent priorities, surface risks early, and help the team deliver predictably.

• Contribute to improvements in engineering practices, documentation, and shared standards.

Skills

Apple Platform Expertise

• Strong programming skills in Swift.

• In-depth knowledge of iOS and tvOS, and proficiency in Xcode.

• Strong fundamentals in memory management, concurrency, animations, and performance profiling.

• Experience designing interfaces across size classes and device families.

• Experience consuming RESTful APIs and integrating with backend services.

AI Fluency, MCP, and Agent Harnesses

• Practical experience using AI coding assistants and agents in day-to-day engineering work.

• Working understanding of inference, context windows, tool use, and the capabilities and limitations of AI coding tools.

• Familiarity with MCP, including connecting AI tools to external tools and data sources, configuring integrations, and managing permissions.

• Understanding of agent harnesses, including how they manage context, instructions, tool execution, and human review.

• Ability to explain practical workflows using MCP integrations and agent harnesses, including how you troubleshoot failures and validate results.

• Working familiarity with skills and plugins, how they extend AI coding tools, and when to use an existing one.

• Ability to write and refine prompts and context, critically evaluate AI-generated output, and validate generated code.

• Familiarity with how LLM- or ML-powered product features are built.

• Sound judgment around privacy, intellectual property, attribution, and responsible AI use.

Architecture and Experimentation

• Strong problem-solving and architectural skills at the app and module level.

• Experience with A/B testing, feature flagging, and client-side experimentation, including experiment assignment, holdout groups, and measuring impact.

• Experience integrating ad-serving products into Apple applications, including ad surfaces, impression tracking, and collaboration with ad tech teams.

• Working familiarity with ML-driven product features, including API contracts, client-side signals, and distinguishing between data, model, and rendering issues.

Leadership and Communication

• Clear written and verbal communication with technical and non-technical colleagues.

• Ability to mentor and support others without requiring a reporting relationship.

• A collaborative approach to technical decisions, feedback, and problem-solving.

Basic Qualifications

• 7+ years of Apple platform development experience, or equivalent senior-level depth.

• Hands-on experience using Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations and agent harnesses in engineering workflows, including validating outputs and troubleshooting failures.

• Experience as a key contributor to at least one publicly released native iPhone application.

• Experience working with Agile development processes.

• Demonstrable, current use of AI coding tools and agents in your day-to-day engineering workflow, and the ability to explain how they work to others.

Desired Qualifications

• BS/BA degree in a technical field such as Computer Science, or equivalent experience.

• Background supporting the integration of rich media assets, including video, into mobile applications.

• Experience building data-driven or server-driven UI, including personalized feeds, ranked content surfaces, and dynamic layouts, with pagination, prefetching, and cache invalidation strategies that keep content fast and fresh.

• Experience working with entertainment, games, news, or sports-related properties.

Bonus Skills (Nice to Have)

• Experience creating reusable skills, plugins, or custom agents for AI coding tools.

• Experience building or extending MCP integrations or agent harnesses.

• Continuous build and test automation experience.

• Understanding of streaming video and DRM concepts.

• Knowledge of localization practices and tooling in Xcode.

• Experience with Swift Package Manager.

#LI-VA1

Paramount+, a direct-to-consumer digital subscription video on-demand and live streaming service from Paramount Global, combines live sports, breaking news, and a mountain of entertainment. The premium streaming service features an expansive library of original series, hit shows and popular movies across every genre from world-renowned brands and production studios, including BET, CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures and the Smithsonian Channel. The service is also the streaming home to unmatched sports programming, including every CBS Sports event, from golf to football to basketball and more, plus exclusive streaming rights for major sports properties, including some of the world’s biggest and most popular soccer leagues. Paramount+ also enables subscribers to stream local CBS stations live across the U.S. in addition to the ability to stream Paramount Streaming’s other live channels: CBSN for 24/7 news, CBS Sports HQ for sports news and analysis, and ET Live for entertainment coverage.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Hiring Salary Range: $156,800.00 - 235,200.00. 

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.

If you are a qualified individual with a disability, you may request a reasonable accommodation during the job application and/or recruitment process. You can request reasonable accommodations by calling 212.846.5500 or by sending an email to [email protected]. Only messages left for this purpose will be returned.