{"id":2505872,"url":"https://alion.io/job/crunchyroll-software-engineer-iii-playback-services","title":"Software Engineer III, Playback Services","company":{"id":40459,"name":"Crunchyroll","domain":"crunchyroll.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/crunchyroll-news","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":null},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"middle","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":16900,"max":205000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":16900},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-18T16:18:44Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-21","last_verified_at":"2026-10-15T01:43:33Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":57,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":57},"description":"About Crunchyroll\nFounded 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.\nJoin our team, and help us shape the future of anime!\nAbout the role\nIn the role of Video Playback Services Software Engineer III, you will report to the Senior Engineering Manager, Playback Services.\nAs 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.\nIn this role, you will:\nDesign, build, and improve backend services and APIs that support secure, reliable video playback.\nTake ownership of projects that improve content protection and security services, playback latency, streaming security, content publishing, and avails testing.\nDeliver well-scoped projects from design through deployment, balancing speed, quality, and long-term maintainability.\nCollaborate with product, QA, and adjacent engineering teams to ship high-quality features and operational improvements.\nStrengthen 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.\nParticipate in on-call and incident response, helping expand coverage and improve response effectiveness over time.\nDebug and resolve moderate to complex production issues related to video delivery, entitlement, configuration, service health, or content protection / security flows.\nContribute to code reviews, design discussions, testing practices, and technical documentation to improve overall engineering quality.\nIdentify technical risks and dependency gaps early, then work with the right stakeholders to drive them to closure.\nHelp increase delivery velocity by contributing pragmatic solutions, dependable execution, and durable service improvements.\nAbout You\nYou're a great fit for this role if you:\nHave 5+ years of professional software development experience building backend services in production environments.\nHave strong experience with backend programming languages such as TypeScript, Go, or similar.\nHave hands-on experience with cloud platforms like AWS or GCP and are comfortable working with distributed systems in production.\nUnderstand video streaming fundamentals, APIs, backend service architecture, and the operational realities of delivering playback at scale.\nCan independently own well-scoped projects from design to deployment and make sound technical decisions with the right stakeholder input.\nAre comfortable working in systems related to content protection, entitlement, secure content access, or adjacent playback security concerns.\nCan debug moderate to complex service issues and improve systems through testing, documentation, observability, and maintainable design.\nCommunicate clearly, collaborate effectively across functions, and proactively surface risks, trade-offs, and dependency concerns.\nAre motivated by improving delivery velocity, strengthening operational coverage, and helping build redundancy in critical technical domains.\nAbout the Team\nThe 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.\nThe 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\nWhy you will love working at Crunchyroll\nIn addition to getting to work with fun, passionate and inspired colleagues, you will also enjoy the following benefits and perks:\nReceive a great compensation package including salary plus performance bonus earning potential, paid annually.\nFlexible time off policies allowing you to take the time you need to be your whole self.\nGenerous medical, dental, vision, STD, LTD, and life insurance\nHealth Saving Account HSA program\nHealth care and dependent care FSA\n401(k) plan, with employer match\nEmployer paid commuter benefit\nSupport program for new parents\nPet insurance and some of our offices are pet friendly!\n#LifeAtCrunchyroll #LI-Hybrid\nThe 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.\nPay Transparency - San Francisco, CA\n$16,900—$205,000 USD\nAbout our Values\nWe 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\nCourage. We believe that when we overcome fear, we enable our best selves.\n\nCuriosity. We are curious, which is the gateway to empathy, inclusion, and understanding.\n\nKaizen. We have a growth mindset committed to constant forward progress.\nService. We serve our community with humility, enabling joy and belonging for others.\n\nOur commitment to diversity and inclusion\nOur mission of helping people belong reflects our commitment to diversity & inclusion. It's just the way we do business.\nWe 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.\nCrunchyroll, 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.\nQuestions about Crunchyroll’s hiring process? Please check out our Hiring FAQs: https://help.crunchyroll.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040471712-Crunchyroll-Hiring-FAQs\nPlease refer to our Candidate Privacy Policy for more information about how we process your personal information, and your data protection rights: https://tbcdn.talentbrew.com/company/22978/v1_0/docs/spe-jobs-privacy-policy-update-for-crpa-dec-21-22.pdf\nPlease beware of recent scams to online job seekers. Those applying to our job openings will only be contacted directly from @crunchyroll.com email account.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6962,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Flexible time off","Life insurance","Pet friendly"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","Sales & Marketing","Streaming & OTT Platforms"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-14T07:14:08Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":19,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.431,"p_room":0.45,"age_days":57,"expected_fill_days":31,"reasons":["conf:0","win:tail"],"computed_at":"2026-10-15T02:08:26Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":16900,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/crunchyroll-software-engineer-iii-playback-services","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/crunchyroll-software-engineer-iii-playback-services.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-15T02:08:26Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":3068,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-16T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":40459},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=40459"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fcrunchyroll-software-engineer-iii-playback-services"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fcrunchyroll-software-engineer-iii-playback-services"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fcrunchyroll-software-engineer-iii-playback-services"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/crunchyroll-software-engineer-iii-playback-services\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fcrunchyroll-software-engineer-iii-playback-services"}]}