Director, Platform SRO

Versant Media; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Versant Media seeks a Director, Platform SRO to lead reliability for mission‑critical broadcast, live events, and digital media platforms. This senior role requires hands‑on technical leadership, rapid troubleshooting under pressure, and partnerships with engineering, production, and vendors to minimize disruption.

The ideal candidate applies SRE principles to media environments, drives root‑cause analyses, and strengthens monitoring and runbooks to ensure operational maturity and resilience for

Qualifications

• Experience supporting media, broadcast, streaming, or 24x7 platforms.
• Hands-on with observability platforms (Datadog, New Relic, Splunk, Grafana).
• Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation).
• Lead reliability initiatives across hybrid cloud and on‑prem environments.
• Industry certs (AWS/GCP/Azure, ITIL, SRE Foundation).
• Experience AI-assisted operational intelligence or automated incident response.

Responsibilities

• Lead high-severity incident response for broadcast and digital media platforms.
• Triage and troubleshoot across playout, production, distribution, and OTT.
• Define and improve incident management, escalation, and on‑call processes.
• Produce post‑incident reviews and preventive action plans.
• Assess reliability, fault tolerance, and readiness across on‑prem, hybrid, and cloud.
• Identify single points of failure and propose architecture and workflow improvements.
• Develop monitoring and observability strategies for real‑time operations.
• Support disaster recovery and live‑event readiness testing.
• Create and maintain runbooks and SOPs.

Skills

SRE

Observability

IaC

Cloud Architecture

Certifications

AI Operations

Tools

Terraform

CloudFormation

Job description

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

The Director, Platform SRO is a senior, hands‑on technical leader responsible for ensuring the stability, resilience, and operational readiness of mission‑critical broadcast linear, live event, and digital media platforms. Operating in high‑pressure, real‑time environments, this consultant leads major incident response efforts, supports on‑air and live‑event continuity, and partners closely with engineering, broadcast operations, production, and vendor teams to minimize service disruption and audience impact. The role requires deep practical experience with media workflows, rapid troubleshooting during live events, and the ability to make sound technical decisions under tight time constraints.

Beyond reactive incident response, the Director plays a strategic role in improving long‑term system reliability and operational maturity. By applying SRO/SRE principles adapted for media environments, the consultant identifies systemic risks, drives root cause analysis, strengthens monitoring and observability, and improves operational processes across broadcast and digital ecosystems. This role balances immediate hands‑on execution with advisory leadership, helping organizations build more resilient architectures, clearer incident processes, and greater confidence in their ability to support live, always‑on media operations.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate high‑severity incident response for broadcast linear channels, live events, and digital media platforms, serving as incident commander when required
• Rapidly triage and troubleshoot issues across media workflows, including playout, live production, contribution/distribution, and OTT delivery
• Establish, refine, and execute incident management processes, including escalation models, on‑call coordination, communications, and severity classification
• Produce post‑incident reviews, root cause analyses, and corrective action plans to prevent recurrence and reduce operational risk
• Assess system reliability, fault tolerance, and operational readiness across on‑prem, hybrid, and cloud‑based media architectures
• Identify single points of failure and recommend architectural, workflow, and operational improvements to enhance availability and resilience
• Define and improve monitoring, alerting, and observability strategies tailored to real‑time broadcast and live event environments
• Support disaster recovery, failover planning, and live‑event readiness reviews, including testing and validation
• Develop and maintain operational runbooks, standard operating procedures, and incident documentation
• Partner with engineering, broadcast operations, production teams, and vendors to align reliability practices with on‑air and live‑event requirements
• Mentor teams on incident response best practices, reliability engineering concepts, and continuous improvement
• Advise leadership on operational risk, system health, and reliability priorities for critical media platforms

Qualifications

Experience supporting media, broadcast, streaming, digital publishing, or other 24x7 customer‑facing platforms.

Experience building or scaling SRE organizations and operational maturity programs. Hands‑on experience with observability platforms such as Datadog, New Relic, Splunk, Grafana, or similar tools.

Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code and automation frameworks including Terraform, CloudFormation, or equivalent technologies.

Experience leading reliability initiatives across hybrid cloud and on‑premises environments.

Industry certifications such as AWS Solutions Architect, Google Professional Cloud Engineer, Azure Solutions Architect, ITIL, SRE Foundation, or equivalent.

Experience implementing AI‑assisted operational intelligence, event correlation, or automated incident response capabilities.

Additional Information

As part of our selection process, external candidates may be required to attend an in‑person interview with a VERSANT Media employee at one of our locations prior to a hiring decision. VERSANT Media's policy is to provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, gender identity or expression, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, veteran status, membership in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran and require support throughout the application and/or recruitment process as a result of your disability, you have the right to request a reasonable accommodation. You can submit your request to [e-mail].

VERSANT Media is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. We include a good faith pay range for each position to comply with applicable state and local pay transparency laws and to promote equity across our organization. Actual compensation will be based on factors such as the candidate's skills, qualifications, experience, and location and may include additional forms of compensation and benefits such as health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, etc.