Software Engineer III, Playback Services

About Crunchyroll

Founded by fans, Crunchyroll delivers the art and culture of anime to a passionate community. We super-serve over 100 million anime and manga fans across 200+ countries and territories, and help them connect with the stories and characters they crave. Whether that experience is online or in-person, streaming video, theatrical, games, merchandise, events and more, it's powered by the anime content we all love.

Join our team, and help us shape the future of anime!

About the role

In the role of Video Playback Services Software Engineer III, you will report to the Senior Engineering Manager, Playback Services.

As a Software Engineer III on the Playback Services team, you will help accelerate critical initiatives aimed at reducing playback latency, bolstering streaming security, and refining the customer experience through better content availability and publishing workflows. A primary focus for this role will be advancing Content Protection / Security initiatives.

In this role, you will:

• Design, build, and improve backend services and APIs that support secure, reliable video playback.
• Take ownership of projects that improve content protection and security services, playback latency, streaming security, content publishing, and avails testing.
• Deliver well-scoped projects from design through deployment, balancing speed, quality, and long-term maintainability.
• Collaborate with product, QA, and adjacent engineering teams to ship high-quality features and operational improvements.
• Strengthen the team's ability to support and evolve content protection and security-related systems by contributing in a specialized area that is critical to future roadmap execution.
• Participate in on-call and incident response, helping expand coverage and improve response effectiveness over time.
• Debug and resolve moderate to complex production issues related to video delivery, entitlement, configuration, service health, or content protection / security flows.
• Contribute to code reviews, design discussions, testing practices, and technical documentation to improve overall engineering quality.
• Identify technical risks and dependency gaps early, then work with the right stakeholders to drive them to closure.
• Help increase delivery velocity by contributing pragmatic solutions, dependable execution, and durable service improvements.

About You

You''re a great fit for this role if you:

• Have 5+ years of professional software development experience building backend services in production environments.
• Have strong experience with backend programming languages such as TypeScript, Go, or similar.
• Have hands-on experience with cloud platforms like AWS or GCP and are comfortable working with distributed systems in production.
• Understand video streaming fundamentals, APIs, backend service architecture, and the operational realities of delivering playback at scale.
• Can independently own well-scoped projects from design to deployment and make sound technical decisions with the right stakeholder input.
• Are comfortable working in systems related to content protection, entitlement, secure content access, or adjacent playback security concerns.
• Can debug moderate to complex service issues and improve systems through testing, documentation, observability, and maintainable design.
• Communicate clearly, collaborate effectively across functions, and proactively surface risks, trade-offs, and dependency concerns.
• Are motivated by improving delivery velocity, strengthening operational coverage, and helping build redundancy in critical technical domains.

About the Team

The Video Platform teams build the systems that power Crunchyroll's most important user experience: watching video. From ingestion to playback, we work on highly scalable systems that deliver video across mobile, desktop, and connected devices.

The Playback Services team focuses on the backend systems that support the player, including configuration, telemetry, and playback optimization. As an SWE III, you'll start contributing to these systems with guidance and grow your expertise over time

Why you will love working at Crunchyroll

In addition to getting to work with fun, passionate and inspired colleagues, you will also enjoy the following benefits and perks:

• Best-in class medical, dental, and vision private insurance healthcare coverage
• Access to counseling & mental health sessions 24/7 through our Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Free premium access to Crunchyroll
• Professional Development
• Company''s Paid Parental Leave
• up to 26 weeks for birthing parents
• up to 12 weeks for non-birthing parents
• Hybrid Work Schedule
• Paid Time Off
• Flex Time Off
• 5 Yasumi Days
• Half-Day Fridays during the summer
• Winter Break

#LifeAtCrunchyroll #LI-Hybrid

The Pay Range for this position is listed. Actual pay will vary based on factors including, but not limited to location, experience, and performance. The range listed is just one component of Crunchyroll's Total Rewards offerings for employees. Other rewards may include performance bonuses, employer matched retirement savings, time-off programs, and progressive health benefits and perks.

Pay Transparency - San Francisco, CA

$16,900-$205,000 USD

About our Values

We want to be everything for someone rather than something for everyone and we do this by living and modeling our values in all that we do. We value

• Courage. We believe that when we overcome fear, we enable our best selves.

• Curiosity. We are curious, which is the gateway to empathy, inclusion, and understanding.

• Kaizen. We have a growth mindset committed to constant forward progress.

• Service. We serve our community with humility, enabling joy and belonging for others.

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion

Our mission of helping people belong reflects our commitment to diversity & inclusion. It''s just the way we do business.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at Crunchyroll. Pursuant to applicable law, we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

Crunchyroll, LLC is an independently operated joint venture between US-based Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Japan''s Aniplex, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc., both subsidiaries of Tokyo-based Sony Group Corporation.

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