Sr. Director, Platform Engineering

Versant•Englewood Cliffs, NJ

About The Position

Versant’s Software Engineering team provides core services to our business, underpinning our strategy and execution of linear & digital distribution of content, platforms, and data. As a leader of our engineering team, you will have a direct role in defining our roadmap towards our future vision in the video landscape. The Senior Director, Platform Engineering is a senior technology lead responsible for the architecture, delivery, and operation of VERSANT’s service & video platform ecosystem across broadcast and digital products. This role owns the end-to-end content & video delivery stack, including client integrations and playback experiences, TV Everywhere (TVE) and direct-to-consumer (DTC) authentication and user flows, live and on-demand video pipelines, and observability across playback and streaming systems.

Requirements

12+ years of experience in software engineering or streaming platforms supporting media, broadcast, or OTT environments.
Significant experience with system design & architecture, especially in serverless and event driven ecosystems with enterprise level scale and resilience.
Deep expertise in HLS/DASH, DRM, CDNs, encoding/transcoding, and player frameworks.
Familiarity with ad-supported video (AVOD) and monetization workflows.
Experience building large-scale video platforms for live and on-demand content.
Strong understanding of Identity, Personalization, Authentication and Subscription systems.
Expertise with analytics, observability, and performance monitoring.
Strong leadership and cross-functional collaboration skills.
Excellent communication and leadership skills, with the ability to operate at both executive and engineering levels.

Nice To Haves

We value growth and mentoring to encourage personal growth and development of our teams.

Responsibilities

Define and own the architecture and long-term roadmap for content & asset delivery across web, mobile, and connected TV platforms.
Establish scalable, resilient architectures and drive standardization of platform components, APIs, and integration patterns across brands and properties.
Evaluate and integrate internal & third-party technologies, CDNs, authorization systems, and observability tools.
Oversee development of client & video player frameworks and SDKs across multiple platforms (web, iOS, Android, CTV).
Ensure seamless integration of playback experiences with authentication, personalization, and analytics systems.
Optimize startup time, buffering, bitrate adaptation, and overall QoE across device types and network conditions.
Lead engineering for live and VOD video workflows, including: Live encoding, packaging, and stream orchestration; VOD ingest, transcoding, clipping, and publishing; Asset management systems and metadata workflows.
Ensure systems support real-time and near-real-time workflows for live sports, news, and event-based programming.
Implement solutions for advertising through DAI and core ad tech integrations across our platform landscape.
Drive improvements in latency, reliability, and scalability of streaming pipelines.
Own architecture and delivery of TVE and DTC authentication systems, including identity, entitlement, and session management.
Partner with product and analytics teams to optimize user flows for acquisition, activation, and retention.
Ensure secure, scalable integration with MVPDs, identity providers, and subscription platforms.
Integrate with personalization services and data platforms to provide user-specific context and optimizations.
Define and implement end-to-end observability strategy for enterprise systems, including: Platform ecosystem scale and resilience; Playback analytics (QoE, QoS, engagement metrics); Stream health monitoring and alerting; Real-time diagnostics for live events.
Establish SLOs for service performance and reliability, and drive continuous improvement through data-driven insights.
Partner with SRE and data teams to build unified dashboards and operational visibility across the ecosystem.
Build and lead high-performing engineering teams across client and backend services to support enteprrise initiatives and core platforms.
Support some of the largest events in the media landscape, with scale and performance top of mind.
Set engineering standards across system design, testing, release management, and operational excellence, consistent with enterprise practices.
Drive execution across multiple concurrent initiatives, ensuring predictable delivery, high quality, and alignment with business priorities.
Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement across teams.
Partner closely with Product, Distribution, Ad Tech, Data, and Editorial teams to deliver integrated video experiences.
Align with infrastructure, cloud, and DevOps teams to ensure scalable, reliable platform operations.
Serve as a senior technical advisor to executive leadership on video strategy, platform investments, and industry trends.