Staff Software Engineer, Media Experiences

Reddit; United States; On-site; USD 217,000 - 303,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive Healthcare Benefits

401(k) with Employer Match

Global Benefit programs

Family Planning Support

Mental Health & Coaching Benefits

Flexible Vacation

Generous Paid Parental Leave

Job summary

Tensec is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the technical architecture of their media infrastructure. This role involves designing a scalable media processing system, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and optimizing backend services. Candidates should have 8+ years of experience in software engineering and expertise in distributed systems. Benefits include comprehensive healthcare, 401(k) match, and flexible vacation. The salary range is $217,000 – $303,000 USD.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a proven track record as a Technical Lead or Staff Engineer.
• Proven track record of designing and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and evolution of our global media processing infrastructure.
• Partner with teams to identify product opportunities.
• Build and optimize resilient backend services for video/audio ingestion.

Skills

Software Engineering

Distributed Systems

Communication

Cross-Functional Leadership

Job description

We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the technical architecture of our media infrastructure. In this role, you will define the strategy for how we ingest, process, store, and deliver video and audio content at Reddit. You will tackle complex technical challenges while also helping shape our media product strategy to deliver high‑quality media experiences globally.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect for Scale: Lead the design and evolution of our global media processing and delivery infrastructure, ensuring low‑latency, high‑availability media for millions of users.
• Accelerate product roadmap: Closely partner with cross‑functional teams to identify product opportunities to increase media consumption.
• Optimize Media Pipelines: Build and optimize resilient backend services for video/audio ingestion, distributed transcoding, and CDN routing.
• Drive AI Integration: Partner with ML/AI teams to build a roadmap that supports media recommendation, content understanding, and generative AI.
• Set the Standard: Establish engineering best practices, design the next generation of our media services, define strict SLOs/SLAs for our media operations.
• Mentorship & Leadership: Guide and empower multiple engineering teams. Translate complex product requirements into actionable technical roadmaps and drive alignment across the company.
• Leverage Modern Tooling: Thoughtfully utilize AI‑assisted development tools to accelerate prototyping, system design, and coding, while applying rigorous judgment to validate and own the final outputs. Evangelize AI as a tool.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a proven track record as a Technical Lead or Staff Engineer.
• Distributed Systems Expertise: Proven track record of designing and operating large‑scale distributed systems, event‑driven architectures, and microservices.
• Communication: Exceptional written and verbal communication skills. Ability to influence technical direction and navigate tradeoffs between performance, reliability, and business impact without directly managing the engineers involved.
• Demonstrated ability to lead large, cross‑functional engineering initiatives that balance technical excellence.

Benefits

• Comprehensive Healthcare Benefits and Income Replacement Programs
• 401(k) with Employer Match
• Global Benefit programs that fit your lifestyle, from workspace to professional development to caregiving support
• Family Planning Support
• Gender‑Affirming Care
• Mental Health & Coaching Benefits
• Flexible Vacation & Paid Volunteer Time Off
• Generous Paid Parental Leave

Pay Transparency

Base salary range for this position is $217,000 – $303,000 USD. In addition to base salary, this job is eligible to receive equity in the form of restricted stock units, and may also be eligible to receive a commission.

Reddit is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and is committed to building a workforce representative of the diverse communities we serve. Reddit is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If, due to a disability, you need an accommodation during the interview process, please let your recruiter know.