Dream Role
Tech companies increasingly launch products and features with video. Traditionally, video production and engineering are separate roles. But to reach developers, producers must understand the product, translating complex features into compelling stories that educate, inspire, and activate users.
Video Engineering Lead
Note: This is a draft reverse job description, if this sounds like something you’d want to introduce at your company:
Let's talkAbout the role
As a Video Engineering Lead, you are a video producer with a strong engineering background. You’ll define the company’s video strategy and roadmap, aligning distribution with product launches and education goals.
You approach video as a Design Engineer would approach their craft. Beyond producing videos, you build the tools behind them: reusable assets, motion graphics, and AI-native workflows that scale and speed up video production.
What you'll do
- Own the full video production lifecycle, from concept to distribution
- Align video roadmap with product launches, education, and growth goals
- Partner with product, engineering, and marketing teams before launch to identify user journeys and use cases
- Translate complex features into compelling stories for technical and non-technical audiences
- Define production standards, create visual assets and templates
- Build video tooling and AI-native workflows across scripting, voice, animation, localization, and analytics
The long version, day-to-day
Pre-production
- Align video roadmap with product launches, education and growth goals
- Partner with product and engineering teams before launch to identify user journeys and use cases
- Translate complex features into compelling scripts for technical and non-technical audiences
Production
- Produce own videos and work with on-camera talent
- Coach speakers to communicate clearly and confidently
- Establish production standards (e.g. lighting, audio, etc.) that ensure consistency and quality
- Manage and evolve an in-house production studio over time
Post-production
- Edit videos with pacing, color grading, and sound design in mind
- Create visual assets and animations that support storytelling
- Document workflows to enable repeatable output
Distribution
- Oversee publishing across YouTube, socials, and sites
- Optimize titles, thumbnails, and positioning
- Define and track metrics such as engagement, and user activation
Engineering and tooling
- Create visual assets and templates
- Integrate AI across scripting, voice, animation, localization, and analytics
- Enable teams to create lightweight videos with AI
What we're looking for
- 5+ years engineering experience (e.g. React, Typescript, CSS Animations)
- Motion design experience (e.g. After Effects or Remotion)
- Proficiency with video editing tools (e.g. DaVinci Resolve)
- Experience integrating AI tools and agents into video production (e.g. ElevenLabs)
- Solid fundamentals in lighting, audio, composition, editing, and script-writing
- Ability to manage multiple video projects in parallel
What success looks like
- Shorter production cycles without compromising quality
- Measurable audience engagement, channel growth, and user activation
- Product and Engineering teams are excited to partner with you to create videos that raise awareness of their work
- GTM teams consistently refer to videos as a resource to enable customers
About me
I build DX and education systems. At Vercel, I’ve led initiatives to teach millions of developers and agents how to use Next.js and Vercel, from docs and courses to conference keynotes and video content. During my time, Next.js has grown from 1M to 35M weekly npm downloads.
Previously, I managed Lambda School’s international operations across Europe and Africa, growing the team from 7 to 35 in a year, and built systems to manage a network of 1,500 students and mentors.
Video tools I’ve built:
Videos I’ve made: