As an Engineering Manager, You Will
Lead a team of engineers building the real-time infrastructure, tooling, and operational systems for live ad insertion across server-side, client-side, and server-guided delivery models.
Own the reliability and operational excellence of ad insertion during 24/7 linear streams and high-stakes live events, including NFL games, live sports, and awards shows.
Define the technical roadmap for live ad insertion, including SCTE signal ingestion and validation, ad pod management, manifest stitching, slate handling, and ad decisioning integration.
Partner with ad operations, broadcast engineering, content delivery, and ad serving teams to ensure seamless signal-to-slot execution from ingest to client playback.
Drive hiring, retention, and development of a high-performing engineering team capable of operating in a demanding live environment.
Establish the on-call and incident response culture for live ad systems, setting SLAs and runbooks for break-glass scenarios during high-profile live events.
Contextualize your team's larger advertising strategy and translate business priorities into a technically sound, executable plan.
Serve as the technical authority in cross-functional discussions on live ad capabilities, representing the team to leadership, partners, and vendors.
Skills and Experience We Are SeekingTechnical Skills & Domain ExpertiseStreaming Pipelines & Architecture: Deep hands-on experience with live streaming pipelines (from ingest protocols like RTMP, SRT, or TS through to CDN) and ad insertion architectures, including SSAI, CSAI, and SGAI (HLS interstitials/DASH).
Broadcast Standards & Splicing: Expertise in broadcast signaling (SCTE-35, SCTE-104, SCTE-224) and manifest manipulation for ad stitching, alongside familiarity with master control and linear playout systems.
Ad Pod Construction & Encoding: Advanced knowledge of managing live break constraints, including slate/fallback handling, break reconciliation, and encoding constraints (codec/bitrate matching, frame rate alignment) to prevent playback artifacts.
Ad Tech Decisioning: Strong understanding of ad servers, DSPs, and VAST 4.x/VMAP in live contexts, with a focus on managing strict decisioning latency budgets, timeout handling, tracking event firing, and mitigating the cascading effects of decision failures.
Operational Tooling: Proven track record of engineering for high-availability, zero-downtime live events, including building operational tooling for ad ops (e.g., real-time fill rate tracking, signal health visualization, and break monitoring workflows).
Leadership and Cross-Functional Collaboration10+ years of total engineering experience with 3+ years managing software engineering teams in a live media, streaming, or ad tech context.
Strong track record of hiring and developing senior engineers in competitive talent markets.
Ability to operate in a flat, fast-moving organization, balancing long-term architectural investments against immediate operational needs.
Effective communicator across both technical and business stakeholders, including ad sales, ad operations, broadcast engineering, and executive leadership.
Experience collaborating with content and distribution partners, including MVPDs, vMVPDs, and broadcast networks, on joint live ad insertion implementations.
Generally, our compensation structure consists solely of an annual salary; we do not have bonuses. You choose each year how much of your compensation you want in salary versus stock options. To determine your personal top of market compensation, we rely on market indicators and consider your specific job family, background, skills, and experience to determine your compensation in the market range. The range for this role is $436,000.00 - $791,000.00.
Netflix provides comprehensive benefits including Health Plans, Mental Health support, a 401(k) Retirement Plan with employer match, Stock Option Program, Disability Programs, Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts, Family-forming benefits, and Life and Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off. Full-time salaried employees are immediately entitled to flexible time off. See more details about our Benefits here.
