Three Reasons Why You Should Get a Job In The Streaming Media Business
Get the skillset that Netflix, Google, and Disney are longing
Explanation of Streaming Media from Wikipedia:
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. In Streaming media, a client end-user can use their media player to start playing digital video or digital audio content before the entire file has been transmitted. Streaming media is an alternative to file downloading, a process in which the end-user obtains the entire file for the content before watching or listening to it.
1. Streaming Video Surpassed Cable Subscriptions
According to MPAA’s Report ( Motion Picture Association of America ), the world’s entertainment market grew to a new high in 2018: $96.8 billion, 9% over 2017. In particular, it highlighted the rapid growth of streaming video, which grew to 613 million subscriptions worldwide, an increase of 27% over 2017. The report also indicated that cable subscriptions dropped by 2% to 556 million.
Since internet penetration and mobile users’ population are accelerating, more and more users are being attracted to video streaming services.
The continuing rise of the video streaming business seems unstoppable. Equipped with the latest streaming tech, newcomers like Apple and Disney decided to launch their own streaming services (Apple TV+, Disney+) in order to cut into Netflix’s monopoly in this business this year.
On top of that, tech giants such as Amazon and Google have been actively recruiting talents with streaming experience to grow their streaming video business ( Twitch, Stadia ) for gamers. That being the case, if these are some of your dream companies, I would suggest that there is no time better than now to get a job in a streaming service company and build up your domain knowledge in this industry, preparing yourself to potentially land a job in your dream company!
2. Streaming Tech Is Worth Your Investment
People might think that video streaming companies — such as Netflix, Hulu , and iQIYI — are content or entertainment providers, but they are also great global tech companies. People often say: “content is king”, but you can’t monetize it without the product and technology.
The tech knowledge behind the video streaming business is super complicated. It is not just pushing all the TV over the internet. The internet was never built to deliver video in great quality on a large scale.
How to deal with millions of concurrent viewers, how to manage high-powered backend data operations, and how to develop complex streaming-video pipelines. These are some of the most valuable tech knowledge you will learn if you immerse yourself in the industry.
As more and more well-known companies start to build their business around video streaming and real-time content sharing, it is a good time to invest yourself in this industry and find jobs that get you exposure to the tech in this industry. Let’s take a look at some interesting opportunities below!
◆ Streaming Engineer
As a streaming engineer, your job is to develop the core networking and communication software that is robust, high performing, and scales to millions of concurrent users.
Usually, Streaming Engineers need to have a strong background in C/C++ to build the lower layer software player, knowledge with advance video coding such as H.264, H.265, MPEG-4, and experience with live streaming protocols such as HLS, RTMP, WebRTC.
The above three common streaming protocols are chosen based on a company’s own needs. Each protocol has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, if you want high stability, you can choose HLS protocol when you can accept longer delays. However, for Ultra-Low latency, you have to choose WebRTC.
Check out Streaming Engineer job opportunities:
1. 17 Media — Streaming Engineer
2. CatchPlay — Senior Streaming Developer
◆ Frontend Engineer
With tons of content, it is a challenge for video streaming providers to give their users a friendly and easy to navigate user interface.
Deciding what kind of content a company should provide to its users is absolutely a challenge. Of course, AI and machine learning are a big part of recommending great content, but there is more to giving a great user experience.
For frontend engineers, it starts with the on-boarding experience. A great front-end engineer will have to know what are the right questions to ask and tailor individual user profiles. How to tweak the navigation and the UI of your product to increase engagement and improve discovery is also important.
Users won’t want to be scrolling through a never-ending list of contents. It is the front-end engineers’ job to make the entire experience smoother.
Frontend job opportunities:
1. 17 Media — Frontend Engineer
2. iKala — Senior Frontend Engineer (React)
◆ Backend Engineer
The backend engineer in the streaming business will take ownership of the video streaming solution, and will deal with all things across from broadcasting to video rendering from the client-side. Usually, they will have a good knowledge of network API design ( e.g. REST or GraphQL) and a good understanding of databases.
As concurrent streams increase, the backend engineer’s job is to keep these services running smoothly, a process called chaos engineering. Working in the streaming media business gives you a chance to have hands-on experience dealing with large scale and large traffic products.
Backend job opportunities:
1. CatchPlay — Senior Backend Java Developer
2. KKStream — Backend Engineer (Video Streaming)
3. 5G Technology Will Boost The Development of Streaming Business
4G/LTE has already made a big impact on consumers’ ability to reliably stream their favorite programs from pretty much anywhere. 5G is going to totally change the game.
The higher frequency bands used within the 5G networks allow for significantly faster data rates between the cell site and devices. Theoretical data rates are expected to be 100 times faster than the best performing 4G LTE networks presently available.
5G will no doubt open up exciting business avenues and amazing possibilities for creativity from content originators, making video streaming and real-time content sharing even more popular in the future.
So what would the world look like in the future? Probably like the one described in the short video below! This short clip was filmed by the Japanese government with the aim of promoting what the world would look like after adopting 5G technology.
In the long run, we will be seeing more real-world usage of video streaming technology after the mass adoption of 5G technology. And if you are a software engineer who wants to get into this business, there is no time better than now to join a video streaming company and start building up your skills!
