Solutions Architect

NCI is a small nonprofit corporation with a distinguished record of delivering high-quality captioning services to broadcast and media customers. As our industry continues to evolve and shift toward an increasingly technical environment, we need a candidate who can assess our current capabilities, close the gap between our legacy broadcast infrastructure and today's streaming-first customer requirements, and build the technical foundation for the next chapter of the company. This role combines immediate operational responsibility with a forward-looking mandate. You will step into a functioning but aging delivery environment, maintain customer commitments from day one, and steadily evolve our architecture toward the modern delivery models our customers increasingly require. We are looking for someone who can operate what exists today while building what comes next.

Core Responsibilities

Keep Delivery Running

• Assume ownership of technical delivery operations - caption encoding, signal routing, ASR tooling, and IP delivery systems

• Serve as senior technical point of contact for delivery issues, system anomalies, and customer escalations

• Work alongside operations staff to build an accurate picture of how workflows function dayto-day

• Ensure customer service level agreements (SLAs) are met throughout any transition or change period

Assess and Document

• Conduct a structured assessment of current systems, tools, and workflows - producing documentation where none exists

• Identify technical debt, single points of failure, and gaps relative to current and anticipated customer requirements, * Evaluate current use of commercial and ASR/AI tools against available alternatives

• Produce a clear current-state report for company leadership

Modernize and Evolve

• Develop a prioritized roadmap to migrate core capabilities from broadcast-era architecture toward IP and streaming-native models

• Guide "build vs. buy" decisions for new capabilities, weighing vendor solutions, open standards, and custom development

• Ensure solutions meet applicable standards - FCC, ADA, CVAA, CEA-708, WebVTT, SRT, TTML

• Lead implementation of approved changes with operations staff and external vendors as needed

Support Customer Needs

• Engage with customers on technical requirements, integrations, and onboarding
• Translate customer requirements into solution designs matched to our capabilities
• Contribute to proposals and statements of work when technical input is required

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical field. Equivalent experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.

• 8+ years of hands-on experience in broadcast engineering, streaming media technology, or a closely related field. Demonstrated expertise designing and delivering scalable technology solutions in complex enterprise environments.

• Practical fluency in caption delivery formats (CEA-608/708, WebVTT, SRT, TTML) and encoding/transport workflows

• Demonstrated experience in both broadcast-era infrastructure and modern streaming/IP architecture (RTMP, HLS, SRT protocol, cloud delivery)

• Ability to assess and document undocumented systems - comfortable operating without a complete picture

• Experience evaluating and integrating commercial tools and ASR/AI platforms into existing workflows

• Strong oral and written communication skills, including seasoned use of UML and the ability to translate technical material for non-technical leadership

Preferred

• Direct experience in captioning, accessibility services, or media localization.

• Familiarity with FCC captioning regulations, ADA Title II/III, and CVAA compliance

• Background in small or mid-size companies where senior individual contributors span strategy and hands-on execution

• Experience with managed or professional services delivery where the work product goes to an external customer, * Operate a computer; must have the ability to perceive on-screen video and data

• Communicate with employees, contractors, consultants, clients, vendors and management via telephone, messaging apps, virtual meeting platforms, and e-mail

• Sit, walk, stoop, stand, lift and/or move objects up to 40 lbs. as required for placement and retrieval of equipment and material