Principal Video Engineer

Company Description

NBCUniversal is one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies. We create world-class content, which we distribute across our portfolio of film, television, and streaming, and bring to life through our theme parks and consumer experiences. We own and operate leading entertainment and news brands, including NBC, NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC Sports, Telemundo, NBC Local Stations, Bravo, USA Network, and Peacock, our premium ad-supported streaming service. We produce and distribute premier filmed entertainment and programming through Universal Filmed Entertainment Group and Universal Studio Group, and have world-renowned theme parks and attractions through Universal Destinations & Experiences. NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation.

Our impact is rooted in improving the communities where our employees, customers, and audiences live and work. We have a rich tradition of giving back and ensuring our employees have the opportunity to serve their communities. We champion an inclusive culture and strive to attract and develop a talented workforce to create and deliver a wide range of content reflecting our world.

Comcast NBCUniversal has announced its intent to create a new publicly traded company ('Versant') comprised of most of NBCUniversal's cable television networks, including USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel along with complementary digital assets Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow, GolfPass, and SportsEngine. The well-capitalized company will have significant scale as a pure-play set of assets anchored by leading news, sports and entertainment content. The spin-off is expected to be completed during 2025.

Job Description

Versant Media is seeking a highly accomplished Principal Video Engineer to serve as the chief technical authority and operational leader for our entire video delivery pipeline. This role is a critical leadership position focused on architecting, implementing, and maintaining the highly scalable, resilient, and performant video infrastructure that powers our premium News, Sports, and Entertainment programming. The Principal Engineer will be directly responsible for defining the technical standards and operational rigor required to ensure flawless, high-availability delivery of our most high-profile live events and on-demand content across all platforms.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

Architectural Leadership & Strategy

• Define Video Architecture & Strategy: Lead the strategic development and implementation of a scalable, resilient end-to-end video pipeline for both live and VOD content, with an emphasis on low-latency, high-quality, and high-availability delivery across all DTC platforms (web, mobile, OTT).
• Establish a Center of Excellence: Act as the subject matter expert, setting the technical standards, best practices, and playbooks for all video delivery engineering teams across Versant Media.
• Future-Proofing & Innovation: Work in tandem with our development teams to write post-event technical reports and evaluations, driving continuous improvement and future-proofing our systems against emerging technologies and new delivery challenges.

Live Operations & Reliability Engineering

• High-Stakes Live Event Operations: Define and stress-test the operational framework to ensure 100% live event success for major events, including sports playoffs, news breaking coverage, and high-volume, concurrent viewership.
• Operational Readiness: Design and lead "war room" procedures and technical communication protocols for high-risk live events, effectively managing clients, vendors, and internal stakeholders on show day.
• CDN & Player Management: Lead the strategy for large object global content delivery network (CDN) utilization, player engineering, configuration, and failover mechanisms to maximize reliability and performance.

Broadcast Integration & Media Supply Chain

• Broadcast/IP Handoff: Partner closely with the Production Engineering and Broadcast teams to architect and manage the seamless, high-quality handoff of live feeds from the broadcast facility to the IP streaming domain.
• Signal Acquisition and Processing: Set the standards for and provide deep technical guidance on managing varied acquisition methods (e.g., RF/satellite, MPEG/IP, Zixi, Fiber) and processing in the machine room, including decoding, routing, up/down/cross conversion, and encoding.
• Media Asset Management (MAM) Integration: Own the technical architecture and integration points for the company's Media Asset Management (MAM) system. Define the workflo