Lead Software Engineer (Java) in Test

Storytelling is, and will always be, the heart of what we do at Skydance.

Our vision is to build a thriving entertainment ecosystem where stories and worlds are imagined, brought to life and experienced. We create for every age and audience, anchored by the strength of our content and experiences and the depth of our connection with fans. We are creator-first, audience-focused, tech-forward, globally scaled.

Here, you’ll work with talented teams that move fast, think boldly and collaborate with purpose to deliver results. We aim high, champion the best ideas and win together, earning the trust of our employees, creators, partners and audiences every day.

If you’re energized by the opportunity to help build the next-generation global media and entertainment company powered by creativity and technology, we’d be thrilled to welcome you aboard. LET’S GO!

Job Title: Lead Software Engineer in Test

Team: Global Quality Engineering

Location: New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco

Overview

Paramount Skydance Corp. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer in Test to design, architect, and deliver high-quality, scalable, and reliable automated testing solutions across our enterprise platforms. This senior technical role combines deep Java engineering expertise, advanced test automation, media/streaming domain knowledge, and modern CI/CD practices to accelerate quality, reduce risk, and ensure world-class customer experiences across CTV, SmartTV, mobile, and web.

You will be a senior technical leader within the Global Quality Engineering (GQE) organization. You will use and enhance our existing departmental automation framework, define quality strategies, and mentor engineers across GQE to elevate testing maturity and engineering excellence. You will also drive AI-augmented development and testing practices using GitHub Copilot (in-IDE), Cursor, and similar tools.

Key Responsibilities

Automation Framework Architecture

• Enhance and extend our existing Java-based departmental test automation framework supporting API, UI, Mobile, CTV/SmartTV, and integration testing; introduce reusable libraries, utilities, and patterns to improve stability and scale.
• Establish scalable patterns for reusable test components, data management, assertions, parallelization, and distributed execution.
• Integrate the framework deeply into CI/CD pipelines to support shift-left testing and continuous quality.

AI-Augmented Quality Engineering

• Champion AI-assisted development and testing using tools such as GitHub Copilot (IDE), Cursor, and LLM-based assistants to improve developer productivity, test authoring velocity, code reviews, and defect triage.
• Apply prompt engineering and retrieval techniques to accelerate test case generation, log/telemetry summarization, video-quality anomaly detection, and root-cause analysis.
• Evaluate and integrate functional AI capabilities that measurably reduce flakiness, false positives, and triage time within the existing framework.

Media & Multi-Platform Quality

• Expand automation coverage for video playback, streaming resiliency, DRM flows, SSAI/CSAI ad insertion, captions/subtitles, and content protection.
• Validate QoE metrics (startup time, rebuffering ratio, frame drops, video/audio sync, error recovery) across Roku, Fire TV, Android TV/Google TV, Samsung Tizen, LG webOS, Apple TV, iOS/Android mobile apps, and modern web players.
• Leverage media tooling such as ffmpeg/ffprobe, Charles/Fiddler, and player inspection APIs for diagnostics and validation.

Quality Engineering Technical Leadership

• Define technical strategy for automated testing across services, microservices, UIs, mobile apps, and OTT/CTV applications leveraging the departmental framework.
• Ensure consistent adoption of engineering best practices, coding standards, and high-quality test development patterns.
• Lead the evaluation and adoption of modern automation technologies and quality platforms.

Cross Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Video Engineering, Playback/Player, Ads/Monetization, CDN/Streaming Operations, and Platform teams to ensure robust validation of streaming experiences and ad workflows.
• Collaborate with Product to ensure test coverage aligns to business priorities and quality goals.
• Work closely with Platform and Data Engineering to support scalable test environments, quality data, and telemetry.

Technical Execution

• Design and implement complex automated test suites using Java, Selenium, Appium, JMeter, Locust, REST-Assured, TestNG/JUnit, and related tooling within the existing framework.
• Build and optimize testing strategies including API/contract, integration, performance/reliability, and device-level testing for CTV/SmartTV, mobile, and web.
• Diagnose and tackle issues related to automation reliability, environment instability, device fragmentation, and system integration.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in software engineering or quality engineering with robust Java development expertise.
• Demonstrated experience using and enhancing an existing enterprise/departmental automation framework.
• Deep expertise in common test automation tools (Selenium, Appium, Playwright, REST-Assured, TestNG, JUnit, Maven/Gradle).
• AI experience (must-have): hands-on use of AI-assisted development tools. This includes tools like Claude Code, GitHub Copilot (IDE), Cursor, or similar. Candidates should also have useful prompt engineering skills for code and tests. LLMs are leveraged for tasks such as generating tests, suggesting code reviews, summarizing logs, and speeding up triage.
• Strong knowledge of CI/CD tools (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Argo, Spinnaker) and quality gates.
• Proven experience testing media/streaming applications across CTV (Roku, Fire TV, Android TV/Google TV), SmartTV (Tizen/webOS), iOS/Android mobile, and web.
• Hands-on validation of HLS/DASH, ABR, DRM, captions/subtitles, and QoE metrics.
• Cloud experience (GCP, AWS, or Azure) and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Solid knowledge of software design patterns, data structures, and core engineering principles.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience mentoring engineers or leading cross-functional automation initiatives.
• Familiarity with observability and APM tools (Grafana, Prometheus, NewRelic, DataDog) and media telemetry(Conviva, MUX, NPAW etc).
• Experience with contract testing (PACT), service virtualization, or synthetic media test data.
• Exposure to CTV/SmartTV automation stacks and remote device labs.

Key Competencies

• Technical leadership- ability to guide teams and evolve automation coverage.
• Quality mindset - commitment to reliability, maintainability, and continuous improvement.
• AI fluency - judgment on where AI adds measurable value in testing.
• Systems thinking - knowledge of distributed systems and complex media pipelines.
• Ownership - ability to drive initiatives end-to-end with autonomy.

Success Metrics

• Increased automation coverage across CTV/SmartTV, mobile, and web; reduced manual regression. • Measurable reduction in escaped defects and media playback incidents. • Improved stability and reliability of automated pipelines and device runs.
• Faster release cycles through scalable, AI-augmented automation.
• Broad adoption and consistent usage of the GQE test framework across teams

Paramount+, a direct-to-consumer digital subscription video on-demand and live streaming service from Paramount Global, combines live sports, breaking news, and a mountain of entertainment. The premium streaming service features an expansive library of original series, hit shows and popular movies across every genre from world-renowned brands and production studios, including BET, CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures and the Smithsonian Channel. The service is also the streaming home to unmatched sports programming, including every CBS Sports event, from golf to football to basketball and more, plus exclusive streaming rights for major sports properties, including some of the world’s biggest and most popular soccer leagues. Paramount+ also enables subscribers to stream local CBS stations live across the U.S. in addition to the ability to stream Paramount Streaming’s other live channels: CBSN for 24/7 news, CBS Sports HQ for sports news and analysis, and ET Live for entertainment coverage.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Hiring Salary Range: $124,000.00 - 186,000.00.

The hiring salary range for this position applies to New York, California, Colorado, Washington state, and most other geographies. Starting pay for the successful applicant depends on a variety of job-related factors, including but not limited to geographic location, market demands, experience, training, and education. The benefits available for this position include medical, dental, vision, 401(k) plan, life insurance coverage, disability benefits, tuition assistance program and PTO or, if applicable, as otherwise dictated by the appropriate Collective Bargaining Agreement. This position is bonus eligible.

What We Offer:

• Attractive compensation and comprehensive benefits packages. Check out our full list of benefits here.
• Generous paid time off.
• Complimentary subscriptions to HBO Max, Paramount+, and other Skydance streaming services and digital news products.
• Robust employee engagement opportunities, including access to exclusive screenings and events, speaker series, volunteer activities and more.

Skydance is an equal opportunity employer (EOE)

We embrace the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects a wide array of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences. Being an equal opportunity employer means that we take seriously our responsibility to consider qualified candidates on the basis of merit. In line with the laws of the country or region in which the role is based, this includes consideration without regard to race, color, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship status, religion or belief, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, pregnancy, parenthood, physical or mental disability, genetic information, military or protected veteran status, union status or any other category protected by applicable law.

If you are a qualified individual with a disability, you may request a reasonable accommodation during the job application and/or recruitment process. You can request reasonable accommodations by calling 212.846.5500 or by sending an email to [email protected]. Only messages left for this purpose will be returned.