Senior Backend Engineer, Plex
Streaming
$120-160k
+ Stock options
More information about location
Movie & TV streaming platform
Be an early applicant
Movie & TV streaming platform
101-200 employees
Be an early applicant
$120-160k
+ Stock options
More information about location
101-200 employees
Company mission
Plex is on a mission to create a global community for streaming content that people can depend on to easily discover, experience, and share all of the entertainment that matters to them.
Role
Who you are
- You have at least 5 years of experience building performant, distributed backend services at scale
- You are detail-oriented and focused on delivering seamless, high quality code, efficient data pipelines, and focused on continuous improvement in all things
- Strong proficiency in Node.js and TypeScript, as well as API frameworks like Express and GraphQL
- You have demonstrated skill implementing caching strategies—including edge caching, in-memory, and distributed caches—to deliver performant APIs at scale
- Experience with databases such as MongoDB (or similar), and optimizing query or data flow for high-throughput applications
- You have practical familiarity with cloud components and architectures, including messaging queues such as RabbitMQ, and cloud storage such as S3
- You are familiar with how backend services are deployed and orchestrated, CI/CD, testing strategies, Docker, and Kubernetes
- You are familiar with using telemetry data to inspect and monitor backend services errors and performance
- Nice to have - You have experience working on streaming or content delivery applications
- Nice to have - You are familiar with media streaming protocols such as HLS and Dash, and video encoding and packaging optimization techniques for online streaming
- Nice to have - You have experience working with complex datasets and maintaining data cleanliness, you may have a special interest in movie & TV metadata
- You are kind, humble, helpful and enjoy getting stuff done
- You are intrinsically motivated, able to manage your time, and enjoy working with a distributed team across the globe
- You believe in asking for help and in helping others when asked, in assuming ownership on issues until they are fully resolved, and in never simply throwing a problem over a wall
- You are hungry to have an impact, continuously working to improve our product, process and push the team to be its best
What the job involves
- As a Senior Backend Engineer on the Streaming team, you will be part of a group responsible for building & maintaining streaming media features in the backend services of one of the most-watched & highest-rated streaming apps across multiple platforms
- You will collaborate with other teams across the organization to deliver new features, work on bug fixes, code reviews, and participate in key decisions that drive the team & product forward
- You will build robust backend functionality to support new and existing streaming experiences across multiple client platforms, using TypeScript and modern backend technologies
- You will develop and maintain scalable, reliable backend systems for key streaming architecture components like content ingestion, catalog management, and playback services
- You will collaborate closely with Product, UX, Content, and Marketing to shape new streaming features and update existing features
- You will work with client engineers and other backend engineers to help define how features are built, and how existing features are maintained
- You will lead and participate in code reviews, advocating for best practices, continuous improvement, and clean, well-tested code
- You will analyze and improve backend performance, reliability, and data pipelines to ensure seamless streaming experiences
- You will contribute to technical discussions, architecture decisions, and team-wide initiatives, and may mentor other engineers
- Also, please note, though we largely work asynchronously, as it relates to meetings, those generally occur between UTC 1600 to UTC 1900
Our take
As well as offering its own deep library of movies, series, and live TV channels, Plex has recently stepped up its product by turning into a single interface for all paid subscription services. If a user subscribes to Netflix, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire for example, they can search and access all these in one place.
Given the competition in the subscription streaming services market, as well as the common user pain points such as time waste while searching, this so-called “Discover” feature is seeing the company’s popularity soar.
Plex has been profitable since 2014, five years after the company’s launch, but after the last funding injection led by existing investor Intercap, the aim is now to scale at large. Indeed, it’s this funding which led to the roll out of its all-streaming-in-one interface.
The fact that Plex is the first streaming company to do this serves as quite an advantage, as it may not be long until others follow suit. The rollout hasn’t been without its complaints about user experience however, but if the company can smooth out these issues as it scales, a period of significant growth could be around the corner.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
49% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Jan 2024
$40m
SERIES C
Feb 2022
$20m
LATE VC
Total funding: $86m
Company benefits
- Monthly wellness stipend
- Flexible paid time off
- Paid parental leave
- Hardware stipend
- Flextime, work from anywhere
- Comprehensive health insurance (medical/dental/vision) (US employees)
- Stock options
- 401k (US employees)
- Plex for the Planet community service opportunities
Company HQ
Los Gatos, CA
Leadership
Elan Feingold
(CTO)Co-founded Plex in 2009 after spells as Director of Engineering at Nx Networks, Engineering Manager at Aravox Technologies, and VP of Technology at MusicStream.
Scott Olechowski
(CPO)Was a co-founding advisor at plex before becoming Chief Product Officer in 2013. Served as a Manager of Business Development at both Cisco and PostX prior to this.
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