Senior Staff Software Engineer

About the job

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!

We are the now and the next. The power behind the people building the future. We are born from the spirit of innovation. We are created from the idea that people around the world want more, need more, deserve more. We are the home of the global digital revolution. We are CNN.ㅤ

Come join our team!

The CNN New Business Engineering team is building a new portfolio of standalone consumer lifestyle products across mobile and web. Our mission is to create innovative, non-news experiences that enrich our users' lives, deepen daily engagement with CNN, and drive the long-term growth of our direct-to-consumer business.

We are looking for a seasoned technical leader with deep expertise in Web software and system architecture design, combined with hands-on software development experience. This role spans customer-facing web applications, shared backend services, and our content management platform, enabling experiences that power both web and mobile products. As a senior technical leader, you will partner closely with Engineering, Product, Design, Editorial, and other teams across CNN to define architecture, drive technical strategy, lead rapid prototyping, contribute to hands-on software development, and guide the delivery of scalable, high-quality software across multiple products.

This is a unique opportunity to shape the technical foundation of CNN's next generation of consumer product portfolio from the ground up. You'll influence architecture across multiple engineering teams, build reusable platform capabilities, leverage AI to accelerate innovation, and help deliver engaging experiences to millions of users. If you're passionate about building 0-to-1 products, solving complex technical challenges, and maintaining a high bar for engineering excellence, we'd love to meet you.

Your Role Accountabilities...

• Define, communicate, and evolve the architecture for customer-facing web applications, shared backend services, and CMS capabilities, ensuring alignment with business objectives and long-term technical strategy

• Provide technical leadership throughout the software development lifecycle through architecture reviews, software design, hands-on development, code reviews, documentation, and technical mentoring.

• Partner with New Business engineering leadership to define and execute the long-term technical strategy, architecture roadmap, and platform evolution for CNN New Business

• Influence technical decisions across multiple engineering teams and build strong partnerships with Business, Product, Design, and Editorial organizations to deliver cohesive customer experiences

• Lead rapid prototyping efforts and technical exploration to validate new product ideas and accelerate 0-to-1 product development

• Champion engineering excellence by establishing best practices for software architecture, code quality, testing, observability, reliability, security, and operational readiness

• Mentor engineers, contribute to technical hiring, and help elevate the technical capabilities of the engineering organization

• Lead the adoption of AI-assisted engineering practices and identify opportunities to leverage AI to improve developer productivity and deliver differentiated customer experiences.

Qualifications & Experience...

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related field, or equivalent industry experience

• 15+ years of software engineering experience, including 5+ years of experience designing and building large-scale web applications and leading architecture for complex software systems. At least 2+ years of experience in a role where you defined and led architecture design

• High-Performance mindset to thrive in a fast-paced, agile environment with a focus on quickly delivering customer value over delivering a perfect solution

• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders across the company

• Technical Leader and mentorship- Your leadership style is rooted in strong collaboration and lifting others. You love to share your knowledge and experience across all teams

• Experience in designing reusable components and platform capabilities that accelerate development across multiple consumer products and engineering teams

• Strong full-stack engineering experience with modern web technologies and frameworks, including JavaScript/TypeScript, HTML/CSS, Python, Go, etc.

• Deep industry experience in designing and implementing highly scalable Web applications, and hands-on familiarity with both client- and server- side technologies. Solid understanding of key design concepts: reliability, availability, security, privacy, analytics, observability, operational readiness

• Deep expertise in cloud-native architectures and experience designing, deploying, and operating systems in AWS (strongly preferred), GCP, or Azure

• Solid knowledge of Operations, CI/CD, and DevOps.

About Skydance

Skydance is a next-generation global media and entertainment company, comprised of three business segments: Studios, Direct-to-Consumer, and TV Media. Skydance's portfolio unites legendary brands, including Paramount, Warner Bros., HBO and HBO Max, Paramount+, Pluto TV, CBS, CNN, CBS Sports, TNT Sports, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, MTV, Food Network, BET, HGTV, and Comedy Central.

Some Important Details

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’re a qualified candidate with a disability and you require adjustments or accommodations during the job application and/or recruitment process, please visit our accessibility page for instructions to submit your request.