About HMS
Hypermedia Systems builds and operates large-scale high-traffic consumer internet products for the Japanese market, serving millions of users and creators across web, live video streaming & delivery, messaging, payments, infrastructure, and internal business systems. Engineers at HMS are trusted to take ownership, solve meaningful problems, and have a direct impact on products used by real customers and creators every day.
VChat (Video Chat) is one of our most important products, and you'll be joining the team responsible for its continued evolution and growth.
About the Role
We are hiring a VChat Engineer to join the team responsible for building, improving, and supporting our live video chat platform.
This role is primarily focused on live video chat engineering within the broader VChat platform.
This is an L3 role for a strong product engineer who can independently own meaningful implementation work, collaborate effectively across the team, communicate clearly, handle ambiguity well, use AI as an accelerator without sacrificing verification, and grow toward larger technical ownership.
The work is broad. A typical change may involve customer-facing UI, application behavior, backend and API touchpoints, database-backed product logic, legacy code paths, live streaming and real-time chat behavior, QA support, release coordination, and production verification. We are not looking for a narrow frontend-only engineer or someone who only wants isolated implementation tasks.
We are looking for someone who has already shipped production web application features, particularly within live video, streaming with chat, or other real-time communication products, and understands how product behavior connects to data and backend systems, and can work effectively in a mature, long-lived production codebase.
What You'll Do
You will own VChat product changes from clarified requirements through release.
This includes understanding the intended behavior, identifying unclear requirements, choosing an implementation approach within existing patterns, writing and testing code, preparing clear PRs, supporting QA, and helping verify changes after release.
You will work across UI, JS app behavior, Next.js app code, backend and API touchpoints, DB-backed features, templates, integrations, and VChat-specific product flows, with a primary focus on live streaming with chat and other real-time, session-based features using technologies such as WebRTC, HLS, Socket.io, Node.js, and React.
You will also improve live video and audio quality in production, including playback, latency, synchronization, buffering, and overall user-perceived quality. As part of the role, you will R&D new technologies, build PoCs where appropriate, and help translate successful prototypes into new & reliable production features.
You will help review work from less experienced engineers, document important behavior changes, and improve the team's shared understanding of VChat over time.
You're AI-forward and use AI as an accelerator, while maintaining strong review, verification, and production-quality discipline.
What We're Looking ForRequired Qualifications
Live Video & Real-Time Engineering
● Experience building live streaming with chat or other real-time, interactive, session-based communication products.
● Hands-on experience with technologies such as WebRTC, HLS, Socket.io, Node.js, and React.
● Experience improving live video and audio quality in production, including diagnosing playback, latency, synchronization, buffering, and user-perceived quality issues.
● Strong understanding of user state, connection lifecycle, session management, timing, failure cases, edge cases, and production behavior within live communication systems.
Core Engineering
● Strong production web application engineering experience.
● Strong JavaScript, HTML, CSS, browser debugging, and asynchronous application behavior.
● Experience with modern JS application frameworks such as Next.js, React, or similar.
● Experience building database-backed product features involving persisted state, validation, backend and API behavior, caching, and user-facing application logic.
● Ability to debug issues spanning UI, application logic, backend and API touchpoints, data, and integration boundaries.
● Ability to own product changes end-to-end, from requirement clarification through production verification.
Platform & Delivery
● Ability to make safe changes in large, long-lived production codebases with shared business rules across multiple product surfaces.
● Experience working in multi-brand, multi-site, or white-label product environments.
● Strong security awareness, including XSS prevention, access control, and secure handling of production data.
● Ability to use AI-assisted development tools effectively while maintaining strong review and verification discipline.
● Ability to critically evaluate AI-generated code for legacy-system compatibility, security, maintainability, and production risk.
Preferred Qualifications
● Experience with high-traffic consumer internet products.
● Experience with Japanese-market products.
● Experience with media servers, streaming pipelines, or live broadcast infrastructure beyond the browser or client layer.
● Experience tuning encoding, bitrate, adaptive streaming, audio capture and playback, echo cancellation, noise reduction, or audio/video synchronization for live or near-live communication products.
● Experience maintaining large server-side PHP applications in mature production systems.
● Experience working with template-driven or server-rendered applications.
● Experience with Redis, Memcached, or similar shared runtime and caching infrastructure used by live applications.
● Experience with deployment pipelines, staging environments, production environments, and runtime infrastructure.
● Ability to research, prototype, and validate new approaches through proof-of-concept work, then translate successful results into reliable production applications.
Growth Path
This role is intended for someone who is already operating as a strong L3 engineer and wants to grow into L4 Staff Engineer-level ownership.
At L3, the expectation is independent ownership of normal VChat product work.
Growth toward L4 means taking responsibility for larger areas of the product, developing deeper technical judgment, mentoring other engineers, improving shared patterns, and becoming a trusted owner for important parts of VChat.
What This Role Is Not
This is not a role for someone who needs every task broken into step-by-step instructions.
It is not a role for someone who only wants greenfield work or isolated frontend tickets.
It is also not an architecture role on day one. The VChat Architect and senior technical leadership own the overall technical direction. This role is about becoming a highly effective product engineer within VChat, with a path toward broader ownership over time.
Why Join HMS
You will work on a business-critical product with real users, real technical depth, and meaningful ownership.
You will join at a point where HMS is modernizing its engineering organization and creating clearer career paths for individual contributors.
For the right engineer, this is an opportunity to become a key contributor on one of our most important platforms while developing toward a larger technical leadership role.
Benefits include:
● Health, Dental, Vision, and Life Insurance coverage
● Paid vacation and holidays
● 401(k) and 401(k) matching
● Flexible hybrid work environment
● Professional development opportunities
● Modern AI-assisted engineering tools and workflows
California Consumer Privacy Act ("CCPA"), as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act ("CPRA")
https://privacy.dtiservices.com/employee
Pay: $120,000.00 - $145,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- 401(k) matching
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Life insurance
- Paid time off
- Professional development assistance
- Vision insurance
Work Location: Hybrid remote in El Segundo, CA 90245
