Staff Software Engineer – Data Platform at Warner Bros. Discovery (Hyderabad)

Do you ever wonder what happens behind the scenes when you stream your favorite movie? You press play on Batman or Game of Thrones, and the video starts instantly. But underneath that simple click is a mountain of data. How does the app know what to recommend next? How does it handle millions of people watching at the same time without crashing?

Most data engineering jobs are about moving small amounts of data from point A to point B. They are safe, but they are boring. You are an experienced engineer. You have spent years mastering code. You are ready for something bigger. You want to build systems that handle petabytes of data for the biggest media company on the planet. Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) is hiring a Staff Software Engineer for their Data Platform in Hyderabad. This is your chance to architect the systems that power the stories the whole world watches.

1. Why This Job is an Amazing Opportunity (Detailed)

Benefit 1: You Will Be an Architect, Not Just a Coder

This is a "Staff" level role. In the engineering world, this is a prestigious title. It means you are done with just taking orders and writing basic scripts. You will design the blueprint for the entire data platform. You get to decide which tools to use. You get to solve high-level problems like, "How do we process a billion events per second cheaper and faster?" Your decisions will shape the technology strategy of a global media giant.

Benefit 2: Working with True "Big Data"

Many companies say they have "Big Data," but they really just have a large Excel sheet. WBD is different. They own HBO, Discovery+, CNN, and Cartoon Network. The amount of data generated by these platforms is unimaginable. You will work with the "Consumer 360" team. This means you are handling data about millions of users globally. You will face challenges with scale that you cannot find in 99% of other companies. If you can solve problems here, you can solve them anywhere.

Benefit 3: Mentorship and Leadership

You have 8+ years of experience. You have learned a lot of hard lessons. This role asks you to pass that knowledge down. You will not manage people (like approving leave), but you will guide them technically. You will review their code, teach them design patterns, and help them grow. It is incredibly satisfying to see a junior engineer improve because of your guidance. Plus, WBD encourages you to write blogs and speak at conferences, building your personal brand in the industry.

2. Role Details: What to Expect

3. The "What, How, & Why" of This Role (Research Based)

What You Will Actually Do

You are joining the Consumer 360 team. Your main goal is to build a "Golden Record" for every customer. Imagine a user watches Friends on HBO Max and then reads news on CNN. WBD wants to know that this is the same person so they can offer better recommendations. You will build the pipelines that catch this data, clean it, and store it. You will use "Event-Driven" architecture. This means as soon as a user clicks a button, your code reacts. You will also keep an eye on the bill. Cloud computing is expensive, and part of your job is making your code efficient to save the company money.

How You Can Succeed in the First 90 Days

Since this is a senior role, the expectations are high. In your first month, do not just read documentation. Look at the existing code and find the bottlenecks. Maybe a Spark job is taking 5 hours when it should take 1 hour. Fix it. By day 60, you should be designing a new microservice or data feed. You should be actively talking to Data Scientists to ask, "What data do you need to build better AI models?" By day 90, you should be the "go-to" person for hard technical questions in the team.

Why This Role is Future-Proof

We are living in the age of streaming wars. Data is the weapon that companies use to win. By joining WBD now, you are placing yourself at the center of this battle. You will master tools like Snowflake, Databricks (Spark), and Kubernetes. These are the most in-demand technologies in the world right now. Furthermore, you will work with AI/ML teams to "operationalize" models. This means you are bridging the gap between Data Engineering and Artificial Intelligence. That is a career safety net that will last for decades.

5. Interview Preparation Guide

This is a Staff-level interview. They will not ask you to just reverse a string. They want to know how you think about systems.

5.1. Where to Practice:

• System Design: This is the most critical part. Read "Designing Data-Intensive Applications" by Martin Kleppmann. Go to YouTube and watch channels like "ByteByteGo" or "Gaurav Sen." Practice designing Netflix or a Real-time Analytics Dashboard.

• Coding: Practice Medium to Hard problems on LeetCode. Focus on SQL queries (Window functions) and Python/Java algorithms involving trees and graphs.

5.2. Key Concepts to Revise:

• Concept 1: Stream Processing vs. Batch Processing Understand the difference between processing data once a day (Batch) vs. instantly (Stream). Study Apache Kafka and Flink. Know what "Watermarking" is and how to handle data that arrives late.

• Concept 2: Data Warehousing (Snowflake/Redshift) You need to know how OLAP databases work. Revise concepts like "Columnar Storage" and "Clustering Keys." Explain how you would optimize a query that scans billions of rows to run in seconds.

• Concept 3: Containerization (Kubernetes) WBD uses Kubernetes (EKS). You do not need to be a DevOps expert, but you must know what a "Pod" is, how auto-scaling works, and how to debug a crashing container.

• Concept 4: CI/CD & Terraform Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is huge here. You should know how to use Terraform to spin up AWS resources. Understand how a GitHub Actions pipeline works to test and deploy your code automatically.

• Concept 5: Data Modeling Be ready to draw a schema. Review Star Schema vs. Snowflake Schema. Understand when to use a NoSQL database (like DynamoDB) instead of a relational one (like PostgreSQL).

5. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: Do I need to know all the tools listed to apply for this job?
A: You do not need to be an expert in every single tool. The job prefers experience with major data processing frameworks, streaming systems, and cloud-based storage or databases. If you know many of them and are willing to learn new ones, you are likely a good fit.

Q: Is this a fully remote role?
A: No. The job location is Hyderabad, Telangana, and the role is described as “hybrid,” meaning you will likely need to spend some time working on-site as well as remotely.

6. Real-World Interview Questions:

• ❓ Design: Design a real-time leaderboard for a gaming platform. How do you handle millions of score updates per second?

• ❓ Spark: We have a Spark job that fails only on Tuesdays. How would you debug this? (Discuss memory skew, data volume spikes).

• ❓ SQL: Write a query to find the top 3 most-watched shows per category for each country. (Hint: Use RANK() or ROW_NUMBER()).

• ❓ Behavioral: Tell me about a time you disagreed with a Product Manager about a technical feature. How did you resolve it?

• ❓ Architecture: Microservices vs. Monolith. When would you stop using Microservices?

• ❓ Kafka: How do you ensure exactly-once processing in a message queue?

7. Why Join Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD)?

Warner Bros. Discovery is not just a company; it is a collection of the world's best storytellers. From the magic of Harry Potter to the reality of Discovery Channel, they cover every genre. Working here feels different because the product you build brings joy to people. You can go home and tell your family, "I helped make that show stream smoothly on your TV." That connection to the product is rare in tech.

The culture at WBD is built on "Championing Inclusion." They are very serious about building a diverse team. They want people with different backgrounds because they know it leads to better ideas. They also offer a "Hybrid" work model in Hyderabad. This gives you the flexibility to work from home when you need to focus and come to the office when you need to collaborate. It is the best of both worlds.

Finally, they invest in your growth. The job description explicitly mentions "Contributing back to the engineering community." They want you to write papers and give talks. They view their Staff Engineers as thought leaders. If you want to be recognized as an expert in your field, WBD gives you the platform to do it.

8. Final CTA & Important Links

🔥 Urgent Notice: Staff-level roles are rare and close quickly once they find the right expert.

👉 Click here to: Apply now

📢 Pro Tip: "In your cover letter, mention a specific technical challenge you solved involving data scale. It catches the recruiter's eye instantly."