Principal Engineer – Streaming Platforms

Permanent Role

Berlin (Hybrid/Remote)

Salary: Up to €130,000

Build systems seen by millions. Decide how they scale.

We’re partnered with a well-established digital streaming company operating at genuine scale; millions of users, multiple markets, real-time traffic, real consequences. While others are still “disrupting,” they are refining, optimising, and pushing the boundaries of what modern streaming platforms can do; technically and responsibly.

We’re looking for a Principal Engineer to help shape the next evolution of their streaming platform. This is a senior technical leadership role for someone who enjoys hard problems, performance-critical systems, and influencing architecture at a company-wide level.

The Challenge

The platform operates where latency, throughput, and reliability truly matter. You’ll work on the backbone of a large-scale streaming system — the components that handle video delivery, traffic spikes, global distribution, and continuous optimisation.

This role is ideal for someone who:

• Thinks in systems, not tickets
• Cares deeply about performance and correctness
• Enjoys guiding other senior engineers without needing formal authority

What You’ll Be Doing

• Owning and evolving the technical vision for core streaming infrastructure
• Designing and reviewing high-performance C++ services used in production at scale
• Tackling complex distributed systems challenges (latency, fault tolerance, scalability)
• Acting as a technical sparring partner to engineering leadership and product teams
• Mentoring senior engineers and raising the technical bar across teams
• Translating business and product needs into robust, long-term technical solutions
• Improving operational excellence, observability, and system resilience

What We’re Looking For

• 8+ years building large-scale, distributed backend systems
• Deep, hands-on experience with modern C++ in performance-critical environments
• Strong understanding of streaming technologies (HLS, DASH, ABR, CDNs, transcoding)
• Experience designing systems that handle high concurrency and sustained load
• Solid knowledge of databases (SQL and NoSQL) and data modelling at scale
• Comfort working in cloud-native environments (Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD)
• Experience with event-driven architectures and asynchronous processing

Nice to have (but not required):

• Exposure to Go (helpful, not essential)
• Any experience with Ad Tech, DAI/SSAI, or related platforms
• Familiarity with video codecs or DRM concepts
• Machine learning or experimentation frameworks in production systems

If this sounds like a role that you would hit the ground running with, and could make significant impact on, apply now!

5V Video are acting as an Employment Agency for the purposes of this job vacancy. We offer a reward scheme if you can recommend someone for this position, up to £250 for you and an additional £250 to a charity of your choice, 5V Video are recognised talent solutions experts within Video and Broadcast Technology working across Europe, the UK and North America.