Sr. Software Backend Engineer, Video Streaming Platform

Sr. Software Backend Engineer, Video Streaming Platform

San Francisco Bay Area, California, United States Software and Services

Join our team and be a key architect in building the next generation of our core software systems! We're looking for a passionate Sr. Software Backend Engineer to create exceptional user experiences and scalable, well-architected solutions that drive our business forward. If you thrive on solving complex challenges and mentoring others, this is the place for you.

Description

Drive a platform roadmap aligned with Apple Information Security (AIS) and product stakeholders.Execute company-wide live event (e.g., all-hands) meeting, exceeding SLAs.Clear reliability posture: multi-region DR, tested failover, run-books, and reduced MTTR.Demonstrable mentorship and cross-team impact: stronger design rigor, docs, and velocity.Internal Streaming/Media. Live and VOD workflows: ingest, encoder/transcoder orchestration, ABR ladders, packaging/manifest generationSecure internal distribution: entitlements by org/role, content classification, watermarking, and retention policies.Peak-event readiness: scaling strategies for all-hands and global broadcasts across mixed networks (office, home, VPN).

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end backend architecture: ingest, live/VOD encoding orchestration, packaging/manifest services, DRM/entitlements, playback APIs, and multi-region failover.
• Integrate with enterprise identity and policy: SSO (OIDC/SAML), audit trails, and policy enforcement for compliance and least-privilege.
• Engineer for peak events: capacity modeling, autoscaling, load shedding, graceful degradation, and DR playbooks that sustain company-wide concurrency spikes. Optimize delivery for enterprise networks: internal CDNs/edge caches, multi-CDN strategies, VPN-aware routing, caching, and bandwidth efficiency.
• Build reusable platform abstractions and APIs that enable comms, HR/training, and product teams to publish, schedule, and measure content safely and reliably. Partner with Security, IT/Networking, Client/Player, Data/Analytics, Compliance/Legal, and Comms to align roadmap and ensure policy, privacy, and accessibility (captions/ASR) are first-class.
• Lead incident response for live events; drive postmortems and systemic reliability improvements.
• Make build-vs-buy decisions and vendor integrations where appropriate; negotiate SLAs and own total cost of ownership.
• Mentor engineers, lead design reviews/RFCs, and elevate engineering standards across teams.

Minimum Qualifications

• Technical degree or equivalent experience building large-scale distributed backends.
• 10+ years building large-scale distributed backend systems.
• 8+ years of Java & API development.
• 5+ years of end-to-end live/VOD pipelines: ingest, transcode orchestration, ABR ladders, HLS/DASH packaging/manifests.
• 5+ years of enterprise video protection: DRM, entitlement/authorization.

Preferred Qualifications

• Deep experience with fault-tolerant distributed systems, multi-region architectures, idempotency, backpressure, and resiliency patterns (circuit breaking, bulkheads). Containers, orchestration, and IaC: Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, Terraform (or equivalent).
• Cloud proficiency (AWS): compute, networking, IAM, object storage; strong cost-awareness and capacity planning.
• AWS media services, such as AWS Live & AWS Media Package.
• Datastores and messaging: SQL and NoSQL (e.g., Oracle, DynamoDB, MongoDB), caching (Redis), and streams (Kafka/Pub/Sub).
• Enterprise identity and security: OAuth2/OIDC/SAML, RBAC/ABAC, token-based auth, encryption in transit/at rest, auditing. Strong observability and operational excellence: metrics/logs/traces (OpenTelemetry), SLI/SLO/error budgets, on-call and incident management.
• Codecs/containers (H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, AV1; MP4/fMP4) and live ingest protocols (SRT, RIST, RTMP).
• CDN and edge: internal cache hierarchy, multi-CDN switching, token auth, and cache-control for enterprise networks.
• Accessibility and compliance: captions, translations, WCAG; knowledge governance, eDiscovery/legal hold.
• Data/analytics for QoE and engagement; familiarity with Hadoop/Ozone is a plus.
• Automation to reduce operational toil; practical use of GenAI to boost developer productivity within security constraints.
• Zero Trust networking concepts, device posture/attestation, and MDM integration.

At Apple, base pay is one part of our total compensation package and is determined within a range. This provides the opportunity to progress as you grow and develop within a role. The base pay range for this role is between $181,100 and $318,400, and your base pay will depend on your skills, qualifications, experience, and location.

Apple employees also have the opportunity to become an Apple shareholder through participation in Apple’s discretionary employee stock programs. Apple employees are eligible for discretionary restricted stock unit awards, and can purchase Apple stock at a discount if voluntarily participating in Apple’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan. You’ll also receive benefits including: Comprehensive medical and dental coverage, retirement benefits, a range of discounted products and free services, and for formal education related to advancing your career at Apple, reimbursement for certain educational expenses — including tuition. Additionally, this role might be eligible for discretionary bonuses or commission payments as well as relocation. Learn more about Apple Benefits.

Note: Apple benefit, compensation and employee stock programs are subject to eligibility requirements and other terms of the applicable plan or program.

Apple is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to inclusion and diversity. We seek to promote equal opportunity for all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, Veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics. Learn more about your EEO rights as an applicant.

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