Lead Engineer, Discovery

Paramount•New York, NY

1d•$157,000 - $235,000

About The Position

The Lead Engineer is the senior technical anchor for a team of backend engineers building services that power content discovery across Pluto TV and Paramount+. The role drives architecture and design for complex initiatives, sets engineering standards through hands-on coding and code and design reviews, and mentors engineers. It partners with the Engineering Manager, Product, Data Science & Personalization, and adjacent platform domains to deliver performant services that drive viewer engagement. This is a senior individual-contributor role that leads through technical depth and influence rather than formal people-management authority. Consumer Platform Engineering owns the API layer between Paramount's client apps and downstream content, identity, and commerce systems. The Discovery domain builds and operates backend services for search, browse, recommendations, editorial curation, and content metadata, serving millions of devices from legacy TVs to modern streaming boxes. The role is accountable for the architecture, delivery, and operational health of high-concurrency, low-latency services consumed across Pluto TV and Paramount+ apps.

Requirements

At least 8 years of software engineering experience, with a strong record as a senior hands-on contributor in 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, including web, mobile, legacy TVs, and modern streaming devices.
Strong familiarity with discovery domains such as search indexing, recommendation pipelines, content metadata, or ranking systems.
Deep, current, hands-on expertise in distributed systems, API design, caching strategies, and data modeling for high-throughput, low-latency services.
Ability to make and defend architecture decisions under ambiguity by evaluating system trade-offs, service boundaries, and design choices using data.
Hands-on expertise with Java-based backend services, cloud infrastructure, and modern CI/CD practices.
Experience operating services under strict SLAs and using metrics such as p99 latency, error rates, cache hit ratios, and A/B test data to guide decisions.
Track record of mentoring engineers and raising engineering standards through code review, design guidance, and pairing without formal management authority.
Strong communication skills and ability to translate product visions into scoped, actionable technical designs for technical and non-technical partners.
Ability to navigate competing priorities across Product Management, Data Science & Personalization, and adjacent platform teams.
Comfort working with geographically distributed engineering teams across time zones, including partner or offshore teams.
Bias toward incremental, measurable delivery over big-bang launches.
Interest in how content discovery and personalization drive viewer engagement, including outcomes such as watch time and engagement.
Proactive ownership of operational health and system reliability.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience with recommendation systems, ML-adjacent infrastructure, or search technologies such as Elasticsearch or Solr.
Prior experience with multi-brand or multi-app streaming platforms, including AVOD, SVOD, or FAST.
Experience working with vendor and offshore engineering resources on technical delivery.
Experience with GCP cloud infrastructure is preferred.

Responsibilities

Drive architecture and design for backend services and APIs for search, browse, recommendations, editorial curation, and content metadata, balancing feature delivery with platform health, scalability, and technical debt.
Serve as the hands-on technical authority in design reviews, deciding on service boundaries, caching strategies, and data models for high-throughput systems, and lead by example through code.
Break large architectural initiatives into shippable, measurable phases and personally lead delivery of the most complex or highest-risk components.
Set and enforce engineering standards for code quality, testing, API design conventions, and documentation.
Ensure backend services meet availability, low-latency, and high-concurrency targets for APIs used by Pluto TV and Paramount+ client apps.
Lead on-call practices, incident response, and postmortems; serve as the senior escalation point for complex production issues.
Define, track, and optimize operational KPIs, including p99 latency, error rates, cache hit ratios, and API adoption, and drive investments to maintain them.
Partner with Product Management and Data Science & Personalization to translate engagement goals into technical designs.
Represent the team in cross-functional and cross-domain discussions with Identity & Commerce and Experiences, ensuring APIs integrate with entitlement, playback, and UI client layers.
Communicate technical trade-offs, decisions, and risks to the Engineering Manager, peer leads, and non-technical stakeholders.
Mentor and develop engineers through code review, design pairing, and hands-on guidance.
Partner with the Engineering Manager on technical hiring activities, including interviewing and raising the technical bar, and on onboarding.
Foster technical ownership and operational accountability, enabling engineers to make implementation decisions.
Support coordination with distributed or offshore engineering partners on technical execution and design alignment.
Contribute to and help run agile workflows, including sprint planning, backlog grooming, and retrospectives, focusing on technical sequencing and dependency risk.
Own documentation for system architecture, API contracts, domain data models, and operational runbooks.

Benefits

Medical insurance
Dental insurance
Vision insurance
401(k) plan
Life insurance coverage
Disability benefits
Tuition assistance program
PTO or benefits as dictated by the applicable Collective Bargaining Agreement
Bonus eligibility
Attractive compensation and comprehensive benefits packages
Generous paid time off
Complimentary subscriptions to HBO Max, Paramount+, and other Skydance streaming services and digital news products
Employee engagement opportunities, including exclusive screenings and events, speaker series, and volunteer activities