Software Engineer

We?re hiring a junior/mid software engineer with?grit?to work on the core of Wowza Streaming Engine ? a large, performance-critical Java media server with a C/C++ transcoder underneath. You don?t need to be a video expert yet; you need to?want to become one, learn fast, and use modern AI tooling (Aider?or?Claude Code) to punch above your weight.

The job Wowza Streaming Engine powers live and on-demand video for customers in 100+ countries ? live events, education, healthcare, government. The engine is a big, mature Java codebase (with a native C/C++ transcoding layer) that handles real-time media at scale, where a pause at the wrong moment means someone?s live stream stutters. You?ll be working?inside?that engine codebase. That means:

• Building core features?? designed for testability and scale, reviewed by engineers who?ve been doing streaming for a long time and will actually teach you.
• Debugging real customer problems?? the kind where you read logs, form a hypothesis, reproduce it, and fix it. This is where you?ll learn the most.
• Reading a lot of existing code?before you write new code. The codebase is large and parts of it are old; navigating it well (and using tools like Claude Code to navigate it?faster) is a considerable part of the job.
• Writing tests?and caring whether your change actually works ? not just whether it compiles.
• Growing into the video domain: codecs (H.264/HEVC/AV1), streaming protocols (RTMP, HLS, MPEG-DASH, WebRTC, SRT), packaging, transcoding, the JNI boundary between Java and native code. We?ll help you get you there; you bring the passion and curiosity.

• Solid fundamentals in Java or a similar language?? roughly 1?4 years of real, hands-on development. The engine is Java and that?s what you?ll write here, but if you?re coming from a kindred language (C#, Kotlin, Scala), that?s fine ? the fundamentals transfer. You understand objects, collections, exceptions, and have at least a general understanding of threads and know why they?re dangerous.
• Grit.?You don?t bounce off a hard problem or a big unfamiliar codebase. You dig, you ask good questions, you come back with what you found ? not just ?it doesn?t work.?
• Real experience with AI coding tools?? Claude Code, or similar agentic tooling. Not ?I tried Copilot once?: you use these tools daily as a lever, you read and verify what they produce, and you know when?not?to trust them. You experiment different workflow, refine your harness and make your AI context better every day.This is how a junior/mid engineer catches up quickly on a codebase this size, and we treat it as a first-class skill.
• Fast, honest learning.?You?ll be surrounded by concurrency, JVM performance, native interop, and 20 years of streaming standards. Nobody expects you to know it on day one; everybody expects you to be visibly further along each month.
• Ownership of quality.?You test your own work, you care about the person debugging your code in two years, and you say so plainly when something is broken.

• Any video/streaming exposure?? codecs, FFmpeg or GStreamer, streaming protocols, a side project that pushed pixels. Even hobbyist-level counts; it tells us the domain excites you.
• C/C++ reading ability?? enough to follow the native transcoder code across the JNI boundary.
• Concurrency / performance work?? thread dumps, profilers, heap analysis, or just war stories.
• Open-source contributions?of any kind ? they show us how you work when nobody?s assigning tickets.

What you?ll get out of it This is a role where the ceiling is high and the domain is deep. In your first couple of years you can realistically go from ?solid Java developer? to someone who understands?low-latency media delivery end to end?? a skill set that is rare, in demand, and genuinely hard to acquire anywhere that isn?t shipping a real streaming server. You?ll do it alongside senior engineers who own the transcoder, the protocols, and the packaging pipelines, and who expect to hand you real work ? not busywork. Benefits

• Generous Paid Time Off
• Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance (effective Day 1)
• 401(k) with strong company match
• Dependent Care FSA
• Employer-paid Life Insurance and AD&D
• Voluntary Life Insurance (Employee/Spouse/Child)
• Paid Parental Leave
• Short-Term and Long-Term Disability
• Training & Development opportunities
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

Who we are Wowza Media Systems is a Colorado-based global leader in video streaming software. Our technology powers live and on-demand video delivery for education, healthcare, enterprise, gaming, government, and more ? reaching customers in over 100 countries. Backed by Clearhaven Partners, we continue to grow by pushing innovation in scalable, low-latency video streaming.

Why join Wowza?

At Wowza, you?ll be part of a fast-paced, mission-driven team working on solutions that power critical real-world applications ? from live-streaming graduations to helping parents monitor NICU care. We encourage ownership, collaboration, and innovation while providing a supportive, global team environment.

Bottom line:?if you?re early in your career, hungry, good with Java or similar language, fluent with AI-assisted development, and the idea of learning how live video?actually?works excites you ? we want to talk to you.