Lead Software Developer

About Wowza

Wowza Media Systems is a Colorado-based global leader in video streaming software backed by Clearhaven Partners (Boston, MA). Our flagship product, Wowza Streaming Engine, is one of the streaming industry’s most foundational, widely adopted, widely trusted and often imitated media server software products.

Organizations with mission-critical video rely on Wowza. Our technology helps power streaming workflows for customers including ESPN, Axon, NASA, Space

X, Blue Origin, Palantir and many others. Across education, healthcare, enterprise, gaming, government and more, Wowza’s software has been implemented in more than 30,000 customer video solutions in over 100 countries.

Role Overview

We are looking for a Lead Software Developer who understands the key stages involved in processing and delivering video content. You will play a central role in the evolution of Wowza Streaming Engine, a core component of the streaming infrastructure used by thousands of organizations. This role is ideal for someone with a strong experience working with modern video pipelines and technical leadership, who wants to guide and contribute directly to a highly impactful, large scale product.

What You Will Do

• Lead the design, development and enhancement of core features of the Wowza Streaming Engine with high levels of reliability and performance.
• Architect and guide the implementation of advanced workflows for new codecs and hardware accelerators.
• Oversee and optimize packaging pipelines for large scale live and on demand delivery.
• Tune and optimize GPU or VPU accelerated transcoding workflows to meet performance, cost and quality requirements.
• Diagnose and resolve complex issues involving video protocols, pipelines and media formats, supporting other team members in the process.
• Contribute to internal standards, formats and best practices in video streaming, and ensure their adoption across the team.
• Collaborate with product, support and customer facing teams, providing clear technical direction.
• Act as a video technology expert for other engineering teams and mentor more junior developers.

Technical Requirements

• 7+ year experience in software engineering using languages such as Java, C++, Go, Rust or C

• Experience designing and maintaining complex or distributed systems
• Hands on experience with video streaming, transcoding and packaging workflows
• Knowledge of modern video codecs (H.264, H.265, VP8, VP9, AV1)
• Experience with hardware accelerated transcoding (NVIDIA, Intel, AMD or equivalent)
• Familiarity with streaming protocols and formats (HLS, MPEG-DASH, RTMP, RTSP, CMAF, WebRTC)
• Understanding of DRM and content encryption workflows
• Familiarity with video quality metrics (PSNR, SSIM, VMAF)
• Ability to provide technical leadership or mentorship
• Experience with unit testing, performance optimization and multithreaded Java debugging
• Experience with JNI and Java native integrations

Nice To Have

• Contributions to open-source video projects.
• Direct experience with Wowza Streaming Engine or Wowza Video.
• Experience with CI CD pipelines and automated testing environments.
• Experience creating public APIs or SDKs.

Why Join Wowza and This Team

• Work on a foundational product in the global video ecosystem.
• Direct impact on the quality, performance and reliability of production streaming workflows.
• Senior, pragmatic and collaborative engineering team.
• Flexible work options from Montreal or anywhere in Canada.

Benefits and Perks

We offer a competitive compensation package and a comprehensive set of benefits designed to support you and your family. While specifics may vary by country, for Canada you can expect:

• Competitive base salary aligned to the Montreal market and your experience
• Generous paid time off and company holidays
• Comprehensive health benefits
• Retirement savings program with company contribution
• Short term and long term disability coverage
• Training and professional development opportunities
• Employee assistance program and wellness support

Who We Are, Culturally

At Wowza, you will be part of a fast paced, mission driven team that powers real world, high impact use cases, from live streaming graduations to supporting critical monitoring and decision…