We’re seeking a Principal Backend Engineer to help build and maintain our linear playout and streaming infrastructure. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys solving challenging technical problems, working autonomously, and contributing to systems that require reliability, performance, and thoughtful design.
You’ll collaborate with a lean and experienced team, contributing to systems that power critical parts of our OTT platform. This is a hands-on role with opportunities to shape the architecture and direction of our backend services.
Responsibilities
- Develop and maintain components of our linear playout system
- Build systems that fulfill scheduled content reliably and efficiently
- Improve and maintain proactive testing and monitoring tools
- Work closely with internal teams to build resilience and uptime into our pipelines
- Enhance our personalization and discovery features, including integration with GenAI/ML projects
- Contribute to service orchestration and microservice improvements across the platform
- Some on-call support may be required during major live events or weekends. Our goal is to reduce the need for manual intervention through proactive automation and self-healing systems.
- Flexible work hours with a remote-friendly culture; we’re a distributed team that values responsiveness over rigidity.
- Initial in-person onboarding in Los Angeles (North Hollywood/Arts District); ongoing in-person collaboration encouraged (e.g., one week per month, if possible).
Key Qualifications
Required
- Strong proficiency with Node.js (v12+), Promise chaining and API versioning
- Experience building APIs and backends with Express.js
- Comfortable applying both OOP and functional programming concepts in JavaScript
- Familiar with modern JS best practices, code linting, and testing strategies
- Experience working with Git-based version control systems (e.g., GitHub, Bitbucket)
- Familiarity with AWS services, particularly Lambda, Step Functions, ECS, and EKS
- Able to reason through performance and reliability concerns in high-concurrency systems
- Communicates clearly and proactively; comfortable asking questions and collaborating across teams
Nice to Have
- Experience with video streaming formats (HLS, MPEG-DASH) and manifest manipulation
- Advanced hands-on usage of ElasticSearch, Redis, NoSQL, etc
- Exposure to infrastructure-as-code tools (Terraform, OpenTofu, AWS CDK, CloudFormation, etc.)
- Familiarity with IP-based workflows, signal routing and video/audio delivery pipelines
- Understanding of CDN strategies (cache warming, WAF, origin shield, multi-CDN setups)
- Hands-on with AWS Media Services (MediaLive, MediaConnect, MediaPackage)
- Monitoring, observability and automation workflows using AWS CloudWatch, EventBridge, or similar tools
- Experience with server-side ad insertion and related streaming monetization approaches
About OTTera
We're an independent, growth-focused company building OTT SaaS solutions that support modern media workflows. Our approach is practical, resourceful, and centered on delivering meaningful results without unnecessary complexity. We prioritize thoughtful solutions, sustainable development practices, and a healthy balance between speed and stability. Our small, agile team works collaboratively to adapt, experiment, and solve problems with a hands-on mindset.
As we continue to scale, we’re looking for developers who value ownership, clarity, and adaptability—and who are excited to build software that powers next-generation streaming experiences.
Work Environment & Culture
We value progress, pragmatism, and openness. We’re a small team solving real problems, and we’re looking for engineers who are excited to grow alongside us. If you’re energized by a fast-moving environment and want to have a direct impact on product and architecture decisions, we’d love to talk.
The compensation range for this role is provided in accordance with market benchmarks and may vary based on factors such as an individual's background, skills, experience, and location.