Software Optimization Engineer – GPU / Hardware-Accelerated Media (FFmpeg / HandBrake / Intel® Quick Sync Video) (f/m/d)
Top focus
Job Description
A unique Software Engineering position combining leading-edge media software engineering work with software and hardware architectural influence and deep GPU/media domain expertise to deliver industry-leading hardware-accelerated video solutions on Intel Graphics architecture to the market.
In this role, you will work with leading open-source media communities (FFmpeg, HandBrake, VLC, etc.), independent software vendors, broadcasters, and content-creation partners, as well as internal Intel engineering teams, to ensure that hardware-accelerated encode, decode, transcode, and video-processing pipelines run optimally on Intel client and workstation platforms.
You will utilize deep expertise in Intel® Quick Sync Video (QSV), oneVPL/VPL, Video Acceleration APIs (VA-API on Linux, D3D11/12 Video on Windows), and modern codec standards (AVC/H.264, HEVC/H.265, AV1, VP9, VVC) to research, develop, prototype, and upstream contributions that drive adoption of Intel media capabilities across the open-source ecosystem.
The team covers a broad spectrum of media use cases—from professional video transcoding farms and live streaming to consumer content creation, screen recording, and AI-assisted media workflows leveraging hardware-accelerated media engines combined with GPU- and NPU-accelerated machine-learning components, such as super-resolution, denoising, scene detection, and frame interpolation.
You will support and influence software development during all phases of the lifecycle, including feature definition, project setup, execution, upstream review and integration, and go-to-market activities. You will also provide technical training, consultation, and hands-on assistance to open-source maintainers and ISV developers on media architecture, software development, Intel media technologies, testing, and performance tuning.
You will engage with open-source maintainers and ISV partners to provide performance analysis and technical guidance throughout the software lifecycle, interface with Intel engineering groups to resolve issues affecting customer and community success, and provide technical feedback to Intel product and engineering teams to help improve future media technologies and solutions.
You will serve as the voice of the open-source media ecosystem within Intel—researching emerging codecs and standards, staying current with industry advancements, and working closely with industry leaders and community maintainers to help influence Intel's media software and hardware technologies.
This position offers an excellent opportunity to develop advanced media engineering expertise, strengthen open-source community engagement and project leadership skills, and build relationships with key partners across the media, streaming, and content-creation industries.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities Analyze, design, develop, debug, and upstream software enhancements to FFmpeg, HandBrake, and related open-source media projects (e.g., GStreamer, VLC, OBS, x264/x265, SVT-AV1, dav1d). Develop, optimize, and maintain Intel® Quick Sync Video code paths through oneVPL/VPL, libmfx, VA-API, and D3D11/12 Video backends.
Understand community and ISV requirements and help align partner products and open-source development efforts with Intel's media and graphics technology strategy. Ensure that media applications and frameworks released by leading vendors and open-source communities run best on Intel's current and future client and workstation platforms.
Drive upstream contributions by authoring patches, participating in code reviews on FFmpeg mailing lists and HandBrake GitHub repositories, and acting as a trusted Intel representative within maintainer communities. Conduct workload, quality (PSNR, SSIM, VMAF), and performance analyses of hardware-accelerated encode, decode, and transcode pipelines on Intel and competitive platforms.
Author technical presentations, blog posts, conference talks, and training materials to share best practices related to Intel media acceleration technologies. Contribute to Intel software and hardware development by providing technical feedback from real-world open-source workloads to media architecture, driver, and product teams.
Identify optimization opportunities by running real-world transcoding, streaming, and AI-enhanced media workloads on Intel media engines, GPU cores, and NPU resources
Qualifications
- Required Qualifications Degree or equivalent experience in a scientific or engineering discipline.
- Advanced experience programming in modern C and C++.
- Advanced experience with hardware-accelerated video programming using one or more of the following: Intel® Quick Sync Video / oneVPL / libmfx VA-API DXVA and Direct3D 11/12 video on Windows NVENC/NVDEC Equivalent technologies Hands-on experience contributing to or extending FFmpeg, HandBrake
- comparable open-source media projects (e.g., libav, GStreamer, x264/x265, SVT-AV1, dav1d).
- Solid understanding of modern video codec standards (AVC/H.264, HEVC/H.265, AV1, VP9, and awareness of VVC).
- Understanding of media containers and streaming protocols such as MP4, MKV, MPEG-TS, RTMP, SRT, HLS, and DASH.
- Strong problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills, including the ability to work effectively within public mailing lists and open-source review processes.
- Self-motivated and capable of working independently.
- Excellent written and verbal English communication skills.
- Additional Qualifications Ph.D. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
- Demonstrated record of accepted upstream patches in FFmpeg, HandBrake, or related projects (please provide commit or pull request links).
- Experience with oneVPL/VPL runtime, Intel Media SDK legacy stack, or Intel Graphics media driver components (e.g., media-driver, libva, intel-vaapi-driver).
- Experience with AI-assisted media workloads such as super-resolution, denoising, frame interpolation, and scene or shot detection using OpenVINO™, DirectML, ONNX Runtime, or PyTorch.
- Experience with low-level GPU programming using Vulkan Video, OpenGL, DirectX, Metal, or compute APIs such as SYCL, DPC++, OpenCL, or CUDA.
- Experience with Intel software development and performance analysis tools such as VTune™, Graphics Trace Analyzer, Metrics Discovery API, Intel® C/C++ Compiler, or TBB.
- Proven experience with performance profiling, debugging tools, and bitstream analysis for media applications.
- Understanding of CPU, GPU, fixed-function media IP, SoC, or DSP architectures.
- Working knowledge of Windows and Linux development environments, including building, packaging, and CI workflows for open-source media stacks.
- Familiarity with streaming and broadcast workflows, including OBS, FFmpeg-based ingest pipelines, live transcoding, and quality metrics tools such as VMAF and SSIMULACRA2.
- Experience managing relationships with open-source maintainers and ISV partners.
- Experience planning and executing software projects, benchmarking, and CI-driven validation of media software stacks.
- Additional language skills are a plus.
- Job Type: Experienced Hire Shift: Shift 1 (Germany) Primary Location: Germany, Munich Additional Locations: France, Paris, Ireland, Leixlip, Israel, Tel Aviv, United Kingdom, Great Britain Business group: The Software Team drives customer value by enabling differentiated experiences through leadership AI technologies and foundational software stacks, products, and services.
- The group is responsible for developing the holistic strategy for client and data center software in collaboration with OSVs, ISVs, developers, partners and OEMs.
- The group delivers specialized NPU IP to enable the AI PC and GPU IP to support all of Intel's market segments.
- The group also has HW and SW engineering experts responsible for delivering IP, SOCs, runtimes, and platforms to support the CPU and GPU/accelerator roadmap, inclusive of integrated and discrete graphics.
- Posting Statement: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, religious creed, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, military and veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, gender, gender expression, gender identity, sexual orientation
- any other characteristic protected by local law, regulation
- Position of Trust N/A EU Salary We offer a total compensation package that ranks among the best in the industry.
- Annual Salary Range for this job which could be performed in Germany is: 62 220,00 € - €112,550.00

- The compensation range displayed in this posting reflects the minimum and maximum target compensation for this position.
- Within this range, individual pay is determined by job related skills, experience, and relevant education, training.
- As part of our total compensation approach, the final offer may include additional pay components and benefits.
- Your recruiting team will share the confirmed base salary along with any applicable total compensation elements upon employment offer delivery.
- Work Model for this Role This role will be eligible for our hybrid work model which allows employees to split their time between working on-site at their assigned Intel site and off-site. * Job posting details (such as work model, location or time type) are subject to change. *