Video Backend Support Engineer
Summary
First-line video operations engineer keeping TOD's OTT encoding and video delivery platform (origin, multi-CDN, packaging, video backend) healthy during live and VOD events, on shift-based coverage including evenings/weekends. Monitors QoE, triages incidents via runbooks, escalates to engineering and vendors. Stack: Harmonic VOS360, Akamai/CloudFront, HLS/DASH, DRM, Grafana/Conviva, Shell/Python.
The Video Support Engineer is part of the team responsible
for the monitoring, first-line support, and operational continuity of TOD — our
OTT encoding and video delivery platform, spanning origin, multi-CDN delivery,
packaging, and the video backend. Working shift-based coverage aligned to the
live-event calendar (including live sports on evenings and weekends either
remote or on site/Hybrid), you keep video services healthy during events,
detect and triage issues, execute operational runbooks, and escalate to engineering
and vendors when needed. You also help keep runbooks, reference material, and
incident records accurate so the team's operational knowledge improves over
time.
Responsibilities
- Monitor the health and performance of TOD encoding and video delivery
systems — origin, CDN, packaging, and delivery — during and around live and VOD
events.
- Provide shift-based operational coverage aligned to the live-event
calendar, ensuring services are watched during high-traffic windows.
- Detect, triage, and resolve first-line incidents using operational
runbooks; carry out known fixes and configuration steps within defined
procedures.
- Monitor viewer experience (QoE) and act on degradations in startup time,
rebuffering, and playback errors.
- Escalate to engineering and to third-party vendors (Harmonic, Unified
Streaming, Akamai, and others) when an issue is beyond first-line scope, and
follow escalations through to resolution.
- Support CMS and video back-end related issues in coordination with
engineering.
- Record all incidents in the incident reporting system, and contribute
findings to post-incident reviews to prevent recurrence and improve future
response.
- Ensure clean handover and hand-back of live systems, confirming services
are fully operational before returning them to live use.
- Help keep runbooks, reference pages, and operational documentation
current, flagging gaps to the responsible engineers.
- Complete assigned tasks to a high standard within agreed timeframes,
coordinating with the team on planned and unplanned activities.
Requirements
Qualifications
- University degree in
Electronic, Electronics & Communications, Computer, or a related
engineering field.
- Min.3 years experience in broadcast systems, digital
television, or OTT environments.
- Understanding of video
standards and formats — SD/HD/UHD, MPEG-TS, HLS, DASH.
- Understanding of CDN-based
content delivery with providers such as Akamai, CloudFront, or similar.
- Experience with OTT video backend systems such as Harmonic
VOS360, AWS Elemental, Unified Streaming and Ateme Titan.
- Understanding of DRM
technologies (PlayReady, Widevine, FairPlay).
- Experience with monitoring and
QoE tools such as Conviva, Grafana, Elasticsearch, Prometheus, Telestream, or
TAG.
- Basic scripting ability (Shell,
Python) for operational tasks and automation.
- Good understanding of the
demands of a live, automated broadcast environment.
- Comfortable working from
runbooks and following structured operational procedures.
- Strong analytical thinking,
troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills.
- Experience with runbooks, PIR
processes, vendor escalation, and Jira.
- Fluent in English; able to
drive readiness across teams without direct authority.
- Preferred: Harmonic VOS360,
Akamai, dashboarding (Grafana/ELK), SSAI/ad insertion, or live sports streaming
experience.