# Nenad Mancevic > Principal Engineer | Multimodal & Distributed Systems | AI & Video Infra Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/nenad Principal AI Platform Architect building AI infrastructure and large-scale distributed systems that power global consumer platforms. I operate at the intersection of advanced AI systems and long-term platform strategy, defining durable technical foundations and advising executive leadership on architectural decisions that shape organizational direction. My focus is AI-native infrastructure: systems that enable machine learning, multimodal intelligence, personalization, and real-time decisioning at scale. I design platforms that become foundational -- allowing teams to move faster because the right architectural constraints are in place. I am drawn to complex, ambiguous challenges where clear technical direction and disciplined execution determine long-term outcomes. Invited speaker at AI Infra Summit on enterprise AI infrastructure and platform architecture. Core Focus: AI Infrastructure & Machine Learning Platforms · Multimodal Systems · Recommender Systems · Distributed Systems Architecture · MLOps / LLMOps · Cloud-Native Platform Engineering ## Work Experience ### Principal Software Engineer @ Warner Bros. Discovery Jan 2022 – Present | San Francisco, CA Chief Architect, Foundational AI/ML Platform • Chief architect of an enterprise AI/ML platform driving company-wide AI transformation across Streaming (HBO Max, discovery+), generating $50M+ in business impact. • Defined long-term platform strategy, influencing multi-year investment decisions and technical direction across the organization. • Established engineering standards adopted across 25+ teams and 300+ microservices, improving reliability, velocity, and interoperability. • Partnered with executive leadership across Product, Research, and Data Science to align architecture with strategic priorities. Selected Impact Multimodal Video AI • Pioneered next-generation video understanding capabilities spanning video, text, and audio using large vision-language models (VLMs), vector embeddings, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation. • Enabled intelligent video search, automated promo generation, and AI metadata pipelines that increased engagement and reduced churn. CaptionAI (Founding Architect) • Built a production ML platform for speech-to-text, translation, and dubbing -- dramatically accelerating global content localization. AdReady Platform • Led architecture for ML-driven contextual ad placement using scene detection, OCR, and object recognition -- materially increasing VOD monetization and ad revenue. Platform Excellence • Authored mission-critical architecture documents supporting flagship streaming launches. • Created a unified Protobuf/JSON schema ecosystem that standardized service-to-service communication at scale. Selected External Recognition • Invited Speaker, AI Infra Summit (Santa Clara) -- “The Hidden Engine of AI: Inside WBD’s Foundational AI/ML Platform.” Presented architecture and strategic vision behind enterprise-scale ML infrastructure powering streaming transformation. Tech: AI Infrastructure, Distributed Systems, Multimodal AI, Agentic AI, Vector Databases, Kubernetes, Kafka, Go, Python, RAG, AWS/GCP ### Principal Software Engineer @ Discovery Inc Jan 2019 – Jan 2022 | Greater Seattle Area Founding Principal Engineer, Global Video Platform (discovery+) • Architected and delivered the distributed video platform that became the foundation of discovery+, scaling from inception to global availability. • Helped grow engineering from 2 to 50+, setting the technical bar and operational culture. • Built automation-first engineering practices enabling rapid delivery without sacrificing reliability. Personalization & AI/ML Leadership • Founded and led the Recommendations & Personalization initiative driving measurable engagement across discovery+. • Owned architecture end-to-end -- infrastructure, data pipelines, MLOps workflows, and real-time model inference. • AI-powered recommendation rails quickly became the top drivers of clicks and minutes watched across the platform. Organizational Influence • Trusted architectural advisor across the organization, aligning teams around scalable technical direction. • Served as Hiring Champion / Bar Raiser, shaping senior hiring decisions during hypergrowth. Tech: Distributed Systems, AWS/GCP, Go, Python, Kubernetes, Postgres, Kafka, CI/CD, Serverless, Observability ### Senior Software Engineer @ iStreamPlanet Jan 2017 – Jan 2019 | Greater Seattle Area • Led a team of senior engineers to deliver a real-time watermarking service in two weeks -- directly enabling a multi-million-dollar contract. • Architected distributed live video transcoding pipelines in the cloud. • Scaled Kafka infrastructure to tens of thousands of messages/sec. • Delivered 10× performance improvements to UDP live-stream capture services. Tech: Go, C++17, Python, Kafka, FFmpeg, Docker, AWS, Nomad ### Senior Software Engineer / Software Engineer @ MotionDSP Jan 2011 – Jan 2017 | Herndon, VA / Nis, Serbia • Technical lead for low-latency video ingestion systems supporting adaptive bitrate streaming and artifact-free playback. • Designed cloud-native media pipelines deployable across AWS, Azure, and GCP. • Built high-performance decoding and playback algorithms for large-format video. • Influenced product roadmap and participated in customer integration strategy. Early Career Highlight: Introduced Git and modern code review practices, transforming team development workflows. ### Software Developer (Google Summer of Code intern) @ Google Jan 2010 – Jan 2010 Worked on an open source project "AJAXify PloneFormGen" as part of Google Summer of Code 2010 program for the Plone Foundation. ### Co-Founder & Lead Engineer @ Pixudo Jan 2007 – Jan 2009 Built an image hosting & enhancement platform years before Instagram. Designed architecture, image processing pipeline, and core web platform. ## Education ### Master’s Degree in Computer Science University of Niš ### Student Exchange Program in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering Tennessee Technological University ### Petnica Science Center ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nenadmancevic - Portfolio: http://mancevic.com --- Source: https://flows.cv/nenad JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/nenad/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-12