Lead Software Engineer Backend Services

#We Are Paramount  on a mission to unleash the power of content... you in?

In-Office, Los Angeles or San Francisco

As a Lead Software Engineer on the Backend Services team, you will take ownership of core API services and contracts within Paramount Streaming's content discovery and engagement systems. You will drive API design, contribute to system architecture, and partner closely with peers, product managers, and stakeholders to deliver reliable, scalable, and high-performance APIs for Paramount+ and Pluto TV. This role is focused on leading API development for a next‑generation streaming personalization engine, a real‑time inference platform that dynamically determines the optimal streaming experiences for each viewer.

You will design and build APIs that:

• Expose real‑time decisioning and personalization capabilities
• Integrate high‑volume user event data and content metadata systems
• Enable seamless communication between content systems, video and ad services, and client applications

• Design, build, and maintain high‑performance, scalable APIs that power content, personalization, and engagement experiences
• Define and enforce API standards and best practices, including versioning, contract design, and backward compatibility
• Lead the development of APIs supporting personalization engines, enabling real‑time decisioning and low‑latency responses
• Collaborate with frontend, backend, data, and platform teams to ensure clean, reliable system integrations
• Evolve existing content management and metadata APIs to support dynamic, personalized experiences
• Design APIs for event‑driven systems, integrating with Kafka, Pub/Sub, or similar messaging platforms
• Optimize APIs for performance, scalability, and reliability under high traffic conditions
• Leverage AI‑assisted development tools to accelerate API development, testing, and debugging
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and release processes to ensure safe and efficient deployments
• Participate in architecture discussions, RFCs, and cross‑team technical initiatives
• Mentor engineers and promote best practices in API design and system development

• BS in Computer Science or related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with 2+ years in a technical lead or senior engineering role
• Proven track record of designing and delivering high‑quality APIs and backend systems at scale
• Strong proficiency in Java (Spring Boot) or similar backend frameworks, building RESTful APIs and microservices
• Deep expertise in API design (REST, Graph
  
  QL, contract‑first development, OpenAPI/Swagger, versioning strategies)
• Experience designing APIs for high‑scale, low‑latency systems (thousands of RPS, millions of users)
• Strong knowledge of event‑driven architectures (Kafka, Pub/Sub, Kinesis) and asynchronous API patterns
• Experience integrating APIs with data pipelines, content systems, and real‑time services
• Solid experience with relational databases (Postgre
  
  SQL, MySQL) and data modelling
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS or GCP) and containerised environments (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Strong experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and API validation strategies
• Experience using or familiarity with AI‑powered development tools (Claude Code, Git Hub Copilot, ChatGPT)
• Excellent communication skills and ability to drive technical alignment across teams
• Demonstrated ability to balance technical excellence with pragmatic delivery

• Experience incorporating AI into the software development lifecycle, including code generation, testing, documentation, and system design
• Familiarity with content management domains, editorial workflows, or media/streaming platforms
• Experience with multi‑region or multi‑tenant architectures
• API design expertise – OpenAPI/Swagger, contract‑first development, versioning strategies
• Infrastructure as code and deployment tooling (Helm, ArgoCD, Terraform)
• Observability and monitoring platforms (Grafana, Prometheus, Datadog)
• Experience with Redis (caching, Redi Search) and No
  
  SQL data stores
• OAuth2/OIDC authentication and authorization patterns
• Expe…