Sr. Software Engineer Data Streaming Systems

Paramount; Burbank (CA); On-site; USD 124,000 - 186,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision coverage

401(k) plan

Tuition assistance program

Bonus eligible

Job summary

Paramount seeks a Senior Engineer to design and build high-performance streaming applications. You will architect scalable systems and mentor junior engineers, using Java, Kafka, and Kubernetes. This role is critical in ensuring our platforms are reliable and performant.

With 5+ years of experience, the ideal candidate will also lead innovations in developing data-driven applications. The position offers competitive compensation and a comprehensive benefits package, ensuring a rewarding workplace within the dynamic environment of Paramount.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience, including 2+ years on streaming or distributed systems.
• Ability to take ownership of complex technical work.
• Willingness to mentor junior engineers.

Responsibilities

• Design and build high-performance, fault-tolerant streaming applications.
• Architect scalable distributed systems.
• Deploy and manage containerized microservices.

Skills

Java & Reactive Programming

Kafka & Event-Driven Architecture

Kubernetes & Cloud-Native Systems

Strong communication and collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Apache Kafka

Docker

CI/CD Tools

Job description

#WeAreParamount on a mission to unleash the power of content… you in? We’ve got the brands, we’ve got the stars, we’ve got the power to achieve our mission to entertain the planet – now all we’re missing is… YOU! Becoming a part of Paramount means joining a team of passionate people who not only recognize the power of content but also enjoy a touch of fun and uniqueness. Together, we co-create moments that matter – both for our audiences and our employees – and aim to leave a positive mark on culture.

Overview

It will build fault-tolerant streaming applications supporting real-time analytics, APIs, AI workflows, and critical data services. This role will design and build high-performance, fault-tolerant streaming applications that power real-time analytics, APIs, AI workflows, and mission-critical data services across the organization. You will architect and implement distributed, event-driven systems using Java, Kafka, Kubernetes, and modern reactive frameworks. As a senior engineer, you will set the technical direction. You will mentor other engineers. You will also ensure that our streaming platforms are reliable, scalable, and operate smoothly. This role requires deep expertise in distributed systems, concurrency, and cloud-native microservices.

Primary Responsibilities

Design & Build Real-Time Streaming Applications

• Develop high-throughput, low-latency streaming applications using Java and Kafka.
• Design event-driven microservices that process, enrich, and route real-time data at scale.
• Implement reactive, non-blocking architectures to support high concurrency and resilience. Create reusable streaming frameworks and libraries. These will help improve engineering efficiency and standardization across the platform.

Architect Scalable Distributed Systems

• Design and optimize distributed streaming architectures. You will work with Kafka topics, partitioning strategies, consumer groups, schema management, and event lifecycle patterns.
• Help make architecture decisions for the whole platform. This includes scalability, resiliency, high availability, disaster recovery, and deployments across multiple regions.
• Drive best practices around event modeling, schema evolution, idempotency, replayability, and data consistency across streaming systems.
• Build and optimize horizontally scalable services deployed within Kubernetes-based cloud environments.
• Production Reliability & Performance Make sure that streaming platforms and services are reliable and easy to monitor. Keep these systems operationally mature.
• Optimize systems for throughput, latency, resiliency, resource efficiency, and infrastructure cost management. Set up full observability using metrics and centralized logging. Use distributed tracing, alerting, and health monitoring tools.
• Build automated testing strategies for streaming workflows, including unit, integration, contract, chaos, and performance testing.
• Participate in production support. Help with incident response and root-cause analysis. Work on initiatives to improve reliability continuously.

Cloud-Native & Kubernetes Engineering

• Deploy and manage containerized microservices within Kubernetes environments across GCP, AWS, or similar cloud platforms.
• Define strategies for autoscaling, deployment, failover, and resource optimization. These strategies will focus on high-volume production systems.
• Create and manage CI/CD pipelines. This includes Infrastructure-as-Code and workflows for automated deployment.
• Collaborate with platform engineering teams to improve developer tooling, deployment automation, and runtime reliability.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Data Engineering teams to integrate streaming architectures with batch processing systems, data lakes, and analytical platforms.
• Collaborate with Software Engineering, Product Management, and API teams to enable real-time services and data-driven applications.
• Work closely with AI/ML engineering teams to support real-time feature engineering, inference pipelines, and operational AI workloads.
• Clearly explain the tradeoffs of different technical options. Discuss scalability considerations and operational risks with engineering stakeholders.

Required Technical Skills

Java & Reactive Programming

• Advanced proficiency in Java, including concurrency, multithreading, and JVM performance tuning.
• Strong experience with reactive frameworks such as Spring WebFlux, Project Reactor, or similar.
• Deep knowledge of asynchronous, non-blocking system design. Kafka & Event-Driven Architecture.
• Extensive experience with Apache Kafka (producers, consumers, streams, schema registry).
• Strong knowledge of partitioning strategies, offset management, rebalancing, and failure recovery.
• Experience designing event schemas and managing schema evolution.
• Familiarity with Kafka Streams, Flink, or similar stream-processing frameworks.

Kubernetes & Cloud-Native Systems

• Strong hands-on experience deploying and operating applications in Kubernetes. You should have experience using Docker for containerization. It’s also important to have knowledge of microservices architecture. You should understand how autoscaling functions. You also need to learn about rolling deployments. It’s important to know patterns that ensure reliable production.

Basic Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 2+ years working on streaming or distributed systems. You should have experience in designing, building, and running production-grade real-time systems. This includes event-driven systems. You should be comfortable working in cloud-based systems that use microservices. This includes engineering environments that focus on these technologies.
• Ability to take ownership of complex technical work and deliver reliable solutions autonomously.
• Willingness to mentor junior engineers and contribute to team engineering standards.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills across engineering and product teams.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field; advanced degree preferred.

Paramount Streaming, a division within Paramount Global, is the home to the company's direct-to-consumer services spanning free and paid in the form of Pluto TV and Paramount+. Pluto TV is the global leader in free ad-supported TV, delivering more than 1,400 global channels and an extensive library of streaming content, including live and original channels. Paramount+, digital subscription video-on-demand and live streaming service, combines live sports, breaking news, and an expansive library of original series, hit shows and popular movies across every genre from world-renowned brands and production studios, including SHOWTIME.

Additional Information

Hiring Salary Range: $124,000.00 - $186,000.00. The hiring salary range for this position applies to New York, California, Colorado, Washington state, and most other geographies. Starting pay for the successful applicant depends on a variety of job-related factors, including but not limited to geographic location, market demands, experience, training, and education. The benefits available for this position include medical, dental, vision, 401(k) plan, life insurance coverage, disability benefits, tuition assistance program and PTO or, if applicable, as otherwise dictated by the appropriate Collective Bargaining Agreement. This position is bonus eligible.

What We Offer

• Attractive compensation and comprehensive benefits packages. Check out our full list of benefits here: https://www.paramount.com/careers/benefits
• Generous paid time off.
• An exciting and fulfilling opportunity to be part of one of Paramount’s most dynamic teams.
• Opportunities for both on-site and virtual engagement events.
• Unique opportunities to make meaningful connections and build a vibrant community, both inside and outside the workplace.
• Explore life at Paramount: https://www.paramount.com/careers/life-at-paramount

Paramount is an equal opportunity employer (EOE) including disability/vet.

At Paramount, the spirit of inclusion feeds into everything that we do, on-screen and off. From the programming and movies we create to employee benefits/programs and social impact outreach initiatives, we believe that opportunity, access, resources and rewards should be available to and for the benefit of all. Paramount is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, creed, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship status, marital status, disability, gender identity, gender expression, and Veteran status.

If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran, you may request a reasonable accommodation if you are unable or limited in your ability to use or access https://www.paramount.com/careers as a result of your disability. You can request reasonable accommodations by calling 212.846.5500 or by sending an email to [e-mail]. Only messages left for this purpose will be returned.