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Welcome to Warner Bros. Discovery... the stuff dreams are made of.
Who We Are...
When we say, "the stuff dreams are made of," we're not just referring to the world of wizards, dragons and superheroes, or even to the wonders of Planet Earth. Behind WBD's vast portfolio of iconic content and beloved brands, are the storytellers bringing our characters to life, the creators bringing them to your living rooms and the dreamers creating what's next...
From brilliant creatives, to technology trailblazers, across the globe, WBD offers career defining opportunities, thoughtfully curated benefits, and the tools to explore and grow into your best selves. Here you are supported, here you are celebrated, here you can thrive.
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We are the now and the next. The power behind the people building the future. We are born from the spirit of innovation. We are created from the idea that people around the world want more, need more, deserve more. We are the home of the global digital revolution. We are CNN.
To see what it's like to work at CNN, follow @WBDLife on Instagram and X!
The CNN Digital team is hiring a Director of Software Development specializing in consumer video and audio product experiences. This is a great opportunity for a collaborative, empathetic and courageous leader that has a passion for video and audio technology and prefers to remain close to code and architecture. The person in this role will help lead the development of the digital video and audio products organization with ambitious goals of engaging CNN's vast audience with user centric experiences that showcase our world class content across mobile, web and connected TV. With CNN's reach, this team's work will be used by hundreds of millions of people around the world.
As the Director of Video and Audio Experiences, you will lead a team of technology managers, architects, and engineers, working cross-functionally with product, design, editorial, content creators, and program managers to deliver and support CNN's core digital video & audio products and capabilities. Features and products this team has released recently are:
- CNN Shorts - Embracing vertical video and bringing it to where our viewers are.
- CNN Headlines - This new streaming product brings breaking news to our audience around the world
- Watch Next - a key recommendation feature in the mobile app video experience that drives additional engagement.
Skills Required:
- 12+ years of professional experience in software development, of which 5+ years involves direct management of a team of 15 or more full time employees.
- Professional experience operating in a continuous delivery organization that leverages Agile methodologies (ceremonies) and tools (Jira). Comfortable working on early iterations of solutions without clearly defined parameters, and the ability to lead a team which has autonomy in their day-to-day decisions.
- Experience developing fully responsive consumer-facing web applications, working together with end-user testers, UX designers, and product managers. Extensive knowledge of CSS, HTML, NodeJS, TypeScript/JavaScript/React, and web frameworks is preferredx.
- General understanding of the challenges and architecture of video technology solutions, from front-end client player integration to full delivery cycle of video content: encoding, packaging, and distribution.
- Demonstrated hands-on experience in the development or integration of video player libraries is preferred.
- Experience working with video and/or audio content in mobile or OTT apps is ideal, but not required.
- Experience integrating services and SDKs (third-party or otherwise) for ads, analytics, audience engagement, QOS/E, and media asset management.
- Experience building comprehensive and robust APIs, configurations, and components to support video playback, user interfaces, video metadata, and third-party integrations.
- Working knowledge of media streaming, client-side and server-side ad insertion, video player events, and captions.
- Working knowledge of digital rights management (DRM), analytics technologies, and adaptive bitrate algorithms. Understanding of how video playback works in modern web browsers and any associated limitations, media source extensions, encrypted media extensions, and auto play.
- Ability to translate business requirements to technical architecture and designs.
- Comfortable communicating with stakeholders from internal technical and nontechnical members, product managers, C-level management.
- Demonstrated expert knowledge of software development methodologies, practice, and architecture, specifically experience architecting performant, scalable, secure, and cost optimized cloud solutions on AWS.
- A general understanding of DevOps CI/CD tools (Jenkins, Maven/Gradle, and Terraform) and implementation best practices.
- Demonstrate an advanced understanding of troubleshooting, root-cause analysis, application design, solution development, human factors/usability design, and implementation of projects for major business units or the enterprise.
- Education / Certification: Computer Science or equivalent experience.
Nice to haves:
- Understanding of the Video player landscape, and various third-party SDKs that integrate with them
- A|B testing and consumer testing platforms.
- Experience with AWS services (such as Lambda, API Gateway, SNS, Elasticache, S3, and CloudFront)
- Unit testing with frameworks such as Jasmine, Mocha, or Jest.
- Basic knowledge of Swift, Kotlin or BrightScript.
- Experience building solutions for high traffic applications and/or sites.
- Understanding of streaming media in a multi-CDN environment.
- Understanding of engineering best practices for performance and accessibility
- Extensive experience building and delivering apps in the in the Media industry
As a member of the team you will:
- Be responsible for defining a technical strategy that aligns or compliments the product strategy and roadmap.
- Be responsible for owning, implementing, developing and maintaining the overall Audio & Video product experience along with thorough testing.
- Hire great talent that helps better support the team's goals and levels up the other engineers.
- Communicate effectively with engineering and product to ensure requirements and expectations are met.
- Collaborate with team members in the planning and execution of new features and products.
- Provide strategic technical guidance and proactively make decisions that help the team succeed.
- Collaborate with video streaming and encoding teams to improve video delivery and playback.
- Ensure the team has what it needs to do their work effectively, investing in their development and improvement.
About you:
- You are excited to learn and ready to take on new challenges, while continually growing and learning.
- You are an excellent communicator, equally comfortable discussing complex technical concepts with a team or presenting to executive leadership.
- You can assess a technical task and break it into manageable tasks with other engineers and product managers.
- You are comfortable giving demos of your work and explaining technical details and requirements across teams.
- You prefer working in an environment that prioritizes strong bi-directional partnerships with Product and other key stakeholders.
- You love mentoring engineers, believing growing skills for your team, even if that surpasses your own.
- You are excited to add positively to the culture of CNN based around trust, partnership and direct constructive feedback.
- You are passionate about improving the code you touch and interact with.
- You lead by example, building trust in every interaction.
How We Get Things Done...
This last bit is probably the most important! Here at WBD, our guiding principles are the core values by which we operate and are central to how we get things done. You can find them at www.wbd.com/guiding-principles/ along with some insights from the team on what they mean and how they show up in their day to day. We hope they resonate with you and look forward to discussing them during your interview.
The Legal Bits...
Warner Bros. Discovery embraces the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects the diversity of our society and the world around us. Being an equal opportunity employer means that we take seriously our responsibility to consider qualified candidates on the basis of merit, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, mental or physical disability, and genetic information, marital status, citizenship status, military status, protected veteran status or any other category protected by law.
If you're a qualified candidate and you require adjustments or accommodations to search for a job opening or apply for a position, please contact us at recruitadmin@wbd.com.