Director Of Engineering

Job Description

About Discovery

Discovery is the world's leading non-fiction media company with a reach of three billion viewers in 220 countries.

The Direct to Consumer (DTC) group is an Engineering company within the Discovery brand. DTC's engineering teams build applications for Web, Mobile, Connected TVs, and Consoles/STBs covering features like Search, Playback, ML-driven Recommendation, Subscriptions, Payments, etc. We are building a Global Video Streaming Platform to support a broad collection of Discovery's brands (Discovery, TLC, Motor Trend, Golf TV, Food Network, Eurosport, and many more) including the recently launched Discovery+. These applications are powered by a fleet of cloud-native microservices for Content Ingestion, Metadata processing, Video encoding & Ad Tech platform on AWS containers & serverless-compute.

Meet Our Team

The DTC Player platform team is a new, global team created to provide single-threaded ownership for a player platform that will power rich media experiences in DTC product offerings like D+, MotorTrend, Eurosport, and Magnolia. The player platform will comprise SDKs targeting each device platform (Android, iOS, Web, Hosted Web App (HWA)), shared CI/CD infrastructure, UI/SDK automation frameworks, and white label clients that will both be used for UI automation as well as serve as samples for client development. We have built players spanning a wide range of devices from browsers to connected TVs and powered the D+ US launch in Jan'2021.

We are expanding rapidly to support the growing D+ service internationally and the associated catalog and device mix. The playback team designs, implements and maintains high-performance software that powers video playback on millions of devices. We are responsible for the playback experience, quality, and performance from the time you press play on a title. Our software is designed to work seamlessly on a variety of devices, in a variety of playing conditions, and in a multitude of content consumption contexts including live streaming, on-demand, and ad-supported playback. We are constantly refreshing our software and adding new functionality that allows users to get the best out of both the Discovery video library (e.g. UHD on supported devices) and their specific device. We respond to organizational and competitive needs and build high-quality software fast in an agile development environment. We work closely with other Discovery teams and help them build video functionality into their offerings.

We are now setting up an India Design Center spanning the entire range of Global Video Platform (GVP) competencies (ingestion, encoding, packaging, metadata services, playback services, and player platforms) to better support the global D+ service and better assist international teams (e.g. D+ India). We are looking for a Director, Software Engineering who will help build and grow the India player platform team and enable global expansion of the D+ service while also contributing to the player platform evolution.

Roles & Responsibilities

The Director, Engineering will act as the site lead for the player platform team in India and be responsible for building a high-performing engineering team comprising engineering and program managers, software developers, and quality assurance engineers and communicating the Player Platform vision. They will be owning independent aspects of the D+ Player Product roadmap and execute on the commitments and ensure smooth, trouble-free launches internationally. They will identify technology gaps and empower the engineering team to come up with proposals to address them. They will audit and review service metrics and help the team continually improve engineering execution and operational effectiveness. They will attract and retain key talent and provide opportunities for professional and career growth. They will help identify customer dissatisfiers and delighters and provide inputs to the global player roadmap to prioritize future investments and innovations.
• Building and managing a team of high-performing engineers and managers and ensuring retention through challenging professional opportunities and career growth prospects.

• Manage relationships with key GVP stakeholders across DRM, content-encoding/packaging, playback, and metadata services as well as DTC client teams and program management and bridge product and engineering.

• Identify new opportunities and enhancements and feed them to the shared product roadmap for prioritization.

• Manage key launches with high quality and minimum disruptions. Operationalize launches and build and maintain infrastructure (dashboards, monitors, logging systems) to ensure a highly reliable and available 24x7 global OTT service.

• Identify and manage vendor relationships and ensure smooth integration into the D+ product delivery process.

• Ability to manage complexity and uncertainty associated with new product development.

What to Bring
• A track record of building, scaling, and growing diverse, global teams of 30+ engineers comprising multiple SDMs and ownership of a customer-facing software service/product.

• At least 10+ years of direct people management and 3+ years experience managing people managers.

• Experience with managing commercial software delivery for OTT service providers, broadcast TV operators, streaming device manufacturers, streaming apps, or other media-related tech stacks.

• Demonstrated experience with making customer-facing commercial software releases using agile development methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, or similar).

• Prior experience with software development in a high-level language (Java, Swift, C++, Kotlin, or similar) and knowledge of software development tools and techniques (design patterns, algorithms, data structures) is essential.

• Deep knowledge of media stacks (HLS, DASH, SS) and associated technologies including content encoding and DRM.

• Knowledge of operational tooling including CloudWatch, Splunk, SQL, Kibana, Elastic Search, GitHub, Jenkins and preferably track record of using them to manage successful launches.

What We Offer

What We Offer:
• A Great Place to work

• Equal opportunity employer

• Fast track growth opportunities
Our Values:

Discovery is governed by our eight guiding principles:

We Are... One Team, Creative Dreamers, Doers. Consumer Obsessed. Global, Quick & Agile, Purposeful and We Do the Right Thing

Discovery's Guiding Principles define the distinctive character, spirit, and attitude of our organization. They inspire how we design our future and recruit talent.

Diversity & Inclusion

Disclaimer: Discovery Communications, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. Discovery is committed to being an employer of choice, not just a good place to work, but a great and inclusive place to work. To that end, we strive to recruit and maintain a workforce that meaningfully represents the diverse and culturally rich communities that we serve. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, protected veteran status or disabled status or, genetic information.

We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including but not limited to all local Fair Chance Ordinances.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-d87999-18-218-61-16-42 in your application.