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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for a Video Technology Manager

💰 $140,000 - $195,000

TechnologyMediaEngineering ManagementBroadcast

🎯 Role Definition

At its core, the Video Technology Manager is the strategic and technical owner of an organization's entire video ecosystem. This individual acts as a bridge between engineering, product, and operations, responsible for the architecture, reliability, and evolution of the video delivery pipeline—from content ingestion and processing to final playback on a user's device. This role requires a unique blend of deep technical expertise in streaming media, strong leadership capabilities to guide a specialized team, and a forward-thinking mindset to navigate the rapidly changing landscape of digital video. They are ultimately accountable for ensuring a scalable, cost-effective, and high-quality viewing experience for all users.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Video Engineer
  • Lead Streaming Media Engineer
  • Media Systems Architect
  • Senior Broadcast Engineer

Advancement To:

  • Director of Video Engineering
  • Head of Media Technology
  • Director of Broadcast & Streaming Operations
  • VP of Engineering

Lateral Moves:

  • Principal Solutions Architect (Media & Entertainment)
  • Senior Technical Program Manager (Video Platforms)
  • Senior Product Manager (Video Experience)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Oversee the end-to-end video technology stack, including live and VOD ingestion, transcoding, packaging, encryption/DRM, origin storage, and content delivery network (CDN) distribution.
  • Develop and execute a long-term strategic roadmap for the company's video platform, ensuring scalability, reliability, and alignment with business objectives and future industry trends.
  • Lead, mentor, and grow a team of video engineers and specialists, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement through regular feedback and professional development opportunities.
  • Manage relationships with key technology vendors, including CDN providers, encoding solutions, player developers, and quality of experience (QoE) monitoring services, leading contract negotiations and performance reviews.
  • Define and enforce technical standards, best practices, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) for all video processing and delivery workflows to maintain high-quality, consistent output.
  • Architect and implement resilient, fault-tolerant video infrastructure for high-availability live streaming events, including disaster recovery, redundancy planning, and failover procedures.
  • Establish and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) and Quality of Experience (QoE) metrics, such as rebuffering ratio, video start time, and playback failures, using data to drive platform improvements.
  • Drive the evaluation, proof-of-concept, and integration of emerging video technologies, such as AV1, low-latency HLS/DASH, server-side ad insertion (SSAI), and interactive video formats.
  • Act as the organization's primary subject matter expert for all video-related initiatives, providing technical guidance to executive leadership and troubleshooting support for complex, high-stakes issues.
  • Manage the operational budget for the video technology department, including cloud hosting costs, vendor licensing fees, and capital expenditures, focusing on cost optimization and efficient resource allocation.
  • Ensure strict compliance with all digital rights management (DRM) requirements and content security protocols (e.g., Widevine, FairPlay, PlayReady) to protect premium video assets.
  • Lead the technical design and strategy for video player applications across multiple platforms (Web, iOS, Android, Connected TVs), ensuring a consistent and high-quality user experience.
  • Spearhead research and development (R&D) projects to explore next-generation video compression and delivery techniques that improve quality while reducing bandwidth costs.
  • Develop and maintain comprehensive documentation for video architecture, workflows, and operational procedures to facilitate knowledge sharing, team onboarding, and cross-functional alignment.
  • Manage incident response protocols for video service outages, leading post-mortem analyses to identify root causes and implement robust preventative measures.

Secondary Functions

  • Partner with data analytics teams to build and refine dashboards that provide real-time insights into video platform performance and user engagement patterns.
  • Provide technical expertise and support to ad operations and monetization teams for the implementation and troubleshooting of VAST/VPAID ad tags and server-side ad insertion (SSAI) systems.
  • Work closely with marketing and content programming teams to plan and execute the technical delivery of major live events, tentpole series premieres, and other high-profile content launches.
  • Represent the company in industry forums, standards bodies (like the Streaming Video Alliance), and technical conferences to stay abreast of the latest trends and influence industry direction.
  • Conduct regular capacity planning and performance testing to ensure the video infrastructure can handle projected growth in viewership and content volume.
  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis to uncover new opportunities for video product enhancement or operational efficiency.
  • Contribute to the organization's broader data strategy and roadmap, ensuring video telemetry is properly integrated.
  • Collaborate with various business units to translate their data and video needs into actionable engineering requirements for the development team.
  • Participate in sprint planning, backlog grooming, and other agile ceremonies within the broader engineering organization to ensure video projects are properly prioritized and resourced.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Video Codecs & Formats: Deep expertise in modern video codecs (H.264, H.265/HEVC, VP9, AV1), audio codecs (AAC, Opus), and container formats (MP4, TS).
  • Streaming Protocols: Mastery of adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming protocols like HLS and MPEG-DASH, including manifest structure, segmentation, and low-latency variations.
  • Cloud Media Services: Hands-on experience with cloud-based media workflows on platforms like AWS (MediaLive, MediaConvert, S3, CloudFront) or Google Cloud (Transcoder API, Cloud Storage).
  • Digital Rights Management (DRM): Strong, practical understanding of DRM technologies and workflows, including Widevine, FairPlay, and PlayReady, and multi-DRM service providers.
  • CDN Architecture: In-depth knowledge of Content Delivery Network (CDN) architecture, configuration, caching strategies, and traffic management for large-scale video delivery.
  • Quality of Experience (QoE): Proficiency with video quality monitoring and analytics platforms (e.g., Mux, Conviva, NPAW) to measure and improve the end-user viewing experience.
  • Video Player Technology: Familiarity with modern video player frameworks (e.g., Video.js, Shaka Player, AVPlayer, ExoPlayer) and their lifecycle on web, mobile, and OTT devices.
  • Ad Technology: Working knowledge of digital advertising standards (VAST, VPAID, VMAP) and experience with the technical integration of Client-Side (CSAI) and Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI).

Soft Skills

  • Strategic Leadership: The ability to develop a long-term vision for a complex technical platform and inspire a team to execute against it, aligning technology with business goals.
  • Stakeholder Communication: Exceptional ability to articulate complex technical concepts clearly and concisely to diverse audiences, from junior engineers to non-technical C-suite executives.
  • Vendor & Partner Management: Strong negotiation, relationship-building, and accountability-driving skills for managing contracts and performance of critical third-party technology providers.
  • Analytical Problem-Solving: A systematic and data-driven approach to troubleshooting, with the capacity to diagnose and resolve multifaceted technical issues under pressure during live events or outages.
  • Mentorship & Team Development: A genuine passion for growing and developing talent, providing constructive feedback, and building a collaborative, high-performance team culture.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree or equivalent, demonstrated practical experience in a relevant technical field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree in a technical or management discipline.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Broadcast Engineering
  • Electrical Engineering
  • Information Technology

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 7-10+ years of progressive experience in video engineering, streaming media, broadcast technology, or a directly related field.

Preferred:

  • A minimum of 3-5 years in a formal leadership or management capacity, with direct responsibility for managing a technical team, a budget, and the operational health of a production video technology stack.
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