Sr. Director, Platform Engineering

Company Description

VERSANT (Nasdaq: VSNT) is an industry-changing media and entertainment business and home to trusted brands that shape culture, inform audiences, and build lasting connections. It operates across four core markets: political news and opinion, business news and personal finance, golf, and sports and genre entertainment. These markets are served through a powerful portfolio of iconic and innovative brands, including CNBC, MS NOW, USA Network, Golf Channel, Oxygen, E!, SYFY, and Versant's sports division USA Sports, along with complementary digital assets including Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow and GolfPass.

Job Description

Versant’s Software Engineering team provides core services to our business, underpinning our strategy and execution of linear & digital distribution of content, platforms, and data. As a leader of our engineering team, you will have a direct role in defining our roadmap towards our future vision in the video landscape. 

The Senior Director, Platform Engineering is a senior technology lead responsible for the architecture, delivery, and operation of VERSANT’s service & video platform ecosystem across broadcast and digital products. 

This role owns the end-to-end content & video delivery stack, including client integrations and playback experiences, TV Everywhere (TVE) and direct-to-consumer (DTC) authentication and user flows, live and on-demand video pipelines, and observability across playback and streaming systems. 

Key Responsibilities 

• Platform Architecture & Strategy 

  • Define and own the architecture and long-term roadmap for content & asset delivery across web, mobile, and connected TV platforms. 
  • Establish scalable, resilient architectures  and drive standardization of platform components, APIs, and integration patterns across brands and properties. 
  • Evaluate and integrate internal & third-party technologies, CDNs, authorization systems, and observability tools. 

• Client & Playback Engineering 

  • Oversee development of client & video player frameworks and SDKs across multiple platforms (web, iOS, Android, CTV). 
  • Ensure seamless integration of playback experiences with authentication, personalization, and analytics systems. 
  • Optimize startup time, buffering, bitrate adaptation, and overall QoE across device types and network conditions. 

• Video Processing & Delivery Pipelines 

  • Lead engineering for live and VOD video workflows, including: 
  • Live encoding, packaging, and stream orchestration 
  • VOD ingest, transcoding, clipping, and publishing 
  • Asset management systems and metadata workflows 
  • Ensure systems support real-time and near-real-time workflows for live sports, news, and event-based programming. 
  • Implement solutions for advertising through DAI and core ad tech integrations across our platform landscape. 
  • Drive improvements in latency, reliability, and scalability of streaming pipelines. 

• Authentication, Authorization & User Flows 

  • Own architecture and delivery of TVE and DTC authentication systems, including identity, entitlement, and session management. 
  • Partner with product and analytics teams to optimize user flows for acquisition, activation, and retention. 
  • Ensure secure, scalable integration with MVPDs, identity providers, and subscription platforms. 
  • Integrate with personalization services and data platforms to provide user-specific context and optimizations. 

• Analytics, QoS & Observability 

  • Define and implement end-to-end observability strategy for enterprise systems, including: 
  • Platform ecosystem scale and resilience 
  • Playback analytics (QoE, QoS, engagement metrics) 
  • Stream health monitoring and alerting 
  • Real-time diagnostics for live events 
  • Establish SLOs for service performance and reliability, and drive continuous improvement through data-driven insights. 
  • Partner with SRE and data teams to build unified dashboards and operational visibility across the ecosystem. 

• Engineering Leadership & Delivery 

  • Build and lead high-performing engineering teams across client and backend services to support enteprrise initiatives and core platforms. Support some of the largest events in the media landscape, with scale and performance top of mind. 
  • Set engineering standards across system design, testing, release management, and operational excellence, consistent with enterprise practices. 
  • Drive execution across multiple concurrent initiatives, ensuring predictable delivery, high quality, and alignment with business priorities.