4+ years of hands-on software engineering experience building and scaling robust backend systems and high-performance frontend applications. Media streaming systems experience: Strong understanding of media transcoding, streaming protocols, CDN architecture, and media pipelines at scale. Strong backend engineering skills: Proficiency in at least one backend (Node.js, Go, Python, Java, or similar), TypeScript, distributed system design, API development, microservices architecture, and event-driven systems. Media processing knowledge: Familiarity with media encoding tools, codec optimization, multi-resolution encoding, and adaptive streaming. Experience processing large media files efficiently. Frontend competence: Proficiency with modern frontend frameworks (React, Vue, Angular), advanced UI engineering patterns, component-based architectures, state management, and CSS libraries like Bootstrap or Tailwind CSS. Cloud and infrastructure experience: Working knowledge of cloud platforms (Google Cloud Platform or AWS), container orchestration, and CI/CD pipelines. Distributed systems knowledge: Experience with message queues (e.g., Redis, Kafka, Pub/Sub), worker architectures, async processing, and handling high-throughput workloads. Database proficiency: Experience with PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and Redis, along with designing data models for media metadata and access control. Performance optimization: Experience optimizing backend APIs, media processing workflows, and frontend playback. Familiarity with profiling and benchmarking. Security awareness: Understanding of authentication, authorization, DRM concepts, and secure media delivery practices. Observability and monitoring: Familiarity with monitoring and debugging tools (e.g., Grafana, Prometheus, Sentry), logging, error tracking, and debugging production issues. System design: Ability to design scalable solutions, understand distributed system patterns, and make informed cost/performance decisions. Ownership mindset: Track record of owning features end-to-end—shipping, monitoring, debugging production issues, and iterating based on feedback. Excellent communication: Ability to document systems, collaborate cross-functionally with PMs/designers, and contribute to technical discussions.