Software Engineer III, Playback Services

About the role

In the role of Video Playback Services Software Engineer III, you will report to the Senior Engineering Manager, Playback Services. As a Software Engineer III on the Playback Services team, you will help accelerate critical initiatives aimed at reducing playback latency, bolstering streaming security, and refining the customer experience through better content availability and publishing workflows. A primary focus for this role will be advancing Content Protection / Security initiatives.

• Design, build, and improve backend services and APIs that support secure, reliable video playback.
• Take ownership of projects that improve content protection and security services, playback latency, streaming security, content publishing, and avails testing.
• Deliver well-scoped projects from design through deployment, balancing speed, quality, and long-term maintainability.
• Collaborate with product, QA, and adjacent engineering teams to ship high-quality features and operational improvements.
• Strengthen the team’s ability to support and evolve content protection and security-related systems by contributing in a specialized area that is critical to future roadmap execution.
• Participate in on-call and incident response, helping expand coverage and improve response effectiveness over time.
• Debug and resolve moderate to complex production issues related to video delivery, entitlement, configuration, service health, or content protection / security flows.
• Contribute to code reviews, design discussions, testing practices, and technical documentation to improve overall engineering quality.
• Identify technical risks and dependency gaps early, then work with the right stakeholders to drive them to closure.
• Help increase delivery velocity by contributing pragmatic solutions, dependable execution, and durable service improvements.

Requirements

You're a great fit for this role if you:

• Have 5+ years of professional software development experience building backend services in production environments.
• Have strong experience with backend programming languages such as TypeScript, Go, or similar.
• Have hands-on experience with cloud platforms like AWS or GCP and are comfortable working with distributed systems in production.
• Understand video streaming fundamentals, APIs, backend service architecture, and the operational realities of delivering playback at scale.
• Can independently own well-scoped projects from design to deployment and make sound technical decisions with the right stakeholder input.
• Are comfortable working in systems related to content protection, entitlement, secure content access, or adjacent playback security concerns.
• Can debug moderate to complex service issues and improve systems through testing, documentation, observability, and maintainable design.
• Communicate clearly, collaborate effectively across functions, and proactively surface risks, trade-offs, and dependency concerns.
• Are motivated by improving delivery velocity, strengthening operational coverage, and helping build redundancy in critical technical domains.

About the team

The Video Platform teams build the systems that power Crunchyroll’s most important user experience: watching video. From ingestion to playback, we work on highly scalable systems that deliver video across mobile, desktop, and connected devices. The Playback Services team focuses on the backend systems that support the player, including configuration, telemetry, and playback optimization. As an SWE III, you’ll start contributing to these systems with guidance and grow your expertise over time.

Benefits

• Best-in-class medical, dental, and vision private insurance healthcare coverage.
• Access to counseling & mental health sessions 24/7 through our Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
• Free premium access to Crunchyroll.
• Professional development opportunities.
• Company's Paid Parental Leave:
  • Up to 26 weeks for birthing parents.
  • Up to 12 weeks for non-birthing parents.
• Hybrid work schedule.
• Paid Time Off and Flex Time Off.
• 5 Yasumi Days.
• Half-Day Fridays during the summer.
• Winter Break.

Pay

The Pay Range for this position is $16,900—$205,000 USD. Actual pay will vary based on factors including, but not limited to location, experience, and performance. The range listed is just one component of Crunchyroll’s Total Rewards offerings for employees. Other rewards may include performance bonuses, employer-matched retirement savings, time-off programs, and progressive health benefits and perks.