Backend Software Engineering Manager, Philo

• 8+ years of backend software development experience, with significant focus on scalable backend application development, video streaming, OTT delivery, or ad tech infrastructure
• 4+ years of software engineering management experience, overseeing backend engineering teams
• Strong people management skills with experience providing coaching, performance feedback, and career development guidance to direct reports
• Deep experience building or leading teams that developed highly scalable, distributed backend systems using languages like Golang, Java, C++, or similar
• Experience operating in cloud computing environments using modern software deployment technologies (e.g. Docker, Kubernetes)
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate across teams and disciplines to achieve common goals
• Track record of making data-driven decisions and working with large-scale systems handling significant traffic
• We are language agnostic, but most of our backend code is written in Golang, Ruby and NodeJS, with some C++ and Python. Our services run on Kubernetes, and we practice continuous deployment across all of our systems

Desirable

• Video is at the core of Philo and what customers engage with the most: watching their favorite shows
• The Video and Ads teams are crucial for delivering on this high expectation and generating significant company revenue through advertising
• The two teams share infrastructure that transcodes content and ads and stitches the two together for seamless playback
• They share the goal of quality video experience because ads are an integral part of the video playback
• The ad team is innovating in the programmatic ad space and with home grown systems the two teams can rapidly innovate
• Philo's video streaming infrastructure is highly distributed, horizontally scalable and harnesses the power of cloud computing to deliver enough video to comprise single digit percentages of North American internet traffic
• Our video pipeline, developed in-house, ingests both live and VOD content from our content partners, dynamically inserts ads into video streams using Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI), and optimally delivers them to our growing user base at exabyte scale
• We use industry leading commercial and open source components in the transcode stage, paired with just-in-time packaging and our own ad stitcher that outputs unique manifests (targeting both HLS and MPEG-DASH) on a per-user, per-session basis
• As a Software Engineering Manager, you will lead the Video and Ads Engineering teams that underpin Philo, focusing on people management, project delivery, and fostering the growth of your direct reports
• While a deep technical background in video streaming or application backend systems is essential, this role emphasizes managerial responsibilities, team collaboration, and career development
• Provide strong people management for the Video and Ads Engineering teams, including regular 1:1 meetings, career development guidance, and general check-ins to support individual growth and team morale
• Collaborate with technical engineering leads to gather feedback on project delivery, execution, and timelines to ensure efficient and on-time releases for our video ingest, transcode, delivery pipeline, and advertising platform
• Work closely with engineering leads to gather insights on code quality and areas for improvement, supporting continuous improvements in reliability, performance, video quality, and user experience
• Drive the professional development of direct reports, helping them grow their technical and leadership skills, and offering guidance on career progression
• Support team members with feedback on their performance, offering coaching and mentorship tailored to each individual's goals
• Facilitate cross-functional collaboration with product, ad operations, data science, and client engineering teams to ensure smooth and coordinated feature delivery
• Monitor the health of the backend teams by managing workloads, identifying bottlenecks, and maintaining a strong, transparent communication flow
• Advocate for team needs, including addressing tech debt and making decisions about project prioritization and resource allocation in collaboration with technical leads
• Manage the hiring and growth of the teams as needed, working with recruiting to identify and onboard top backend engineering talent
• Manage day-to-day partnership operations with content providers, CDN partners, and ad tech ecosystem partners to ensure optimal video delivery and ad performance
• Serve as a technical leader and advocate for the video streaming and advertising infrastructure, staying informed of industry trends and emerging technologies