This document provides an overview of Netflix's Access and Identity Management (AIM) engineering team. It summarizes that AIM provides secure access to Netflix resources by managing customer identity and authentication across 2000+ device types. The team recently modernized its systems by replacing multiple token types with a single identity object to propagate throughout Netflix's microservices. The engineering manager role involves balancing high velocity software delivery while ensuring system performance, security and availability by leading a senior team with experience in access/identity management technologies at scale.

1. Engineering
Manager Overview

2. World’s Leading Internet TV Network
● Opportunity: > 998M Broadband Households
● 158M+ Paid Members
● 190+ Countries
● 2000+ Device Types
● 125M+ Viewing Hours / Day
● Commercial Free
○ TV
○ Movies
○ Original Content

3. Netflix: Streaming Service of Choice
● 23% of US adults stream
Netflix on a daily basis
● 51% of US streaming
subscribers use Netflix
● 77% of Video on
Demand (VoD) users
have Netflix

4. At Tremendous Scale
Source: 2019 Global Internet Phenomena Report
● Streaming video accounts for >60%
of all traffic on the internet
● Netflix accounts for 12.6% of total
downstream volume of traffic and
11.4% of all internet traffic!

5. Freedom & Responsibility Culture
Every Netflix employee has the freedom to do their best
work and the responsibility to achieve excellence.
Values Are What We Value
● Judgment
● Communication
● Impact
● Curiosity
● Innovation
● Courage
● Passion
● Integrity
● Selflessness
● Inclusion
See https://jobs.netflix.com/culture
for more information on our innovative
Freedom & Responsibility culture

6. Team Overview

7. Product Edge Systems
AIM is a part of the Product Edge Systems group at Netflix. For an overview of
the organization, see https://tiny.cc/NetflixPES.

8. Product & Edge
Access Services
Provide APIs and orchestrate
AuthN and token
management
Access & Identity Management
User Systems
& Data
Provide services and APIs to
manage customer identity
and device relationships
Enable secure and seamless access to Netflix
product resources by providing and
leveraging common Identity, Authentication
and Authorization infrastructure & Services
Device Identity
Systems
Provide server-side device
activation, identity, and
authentication

9. Identity Management
Clients present different token types with each request. AIM systems crack these
open at the Edge and generate an integrity-protected token agnostic identity
object (Passport) to propagate to downstream systems.
Cookies
MSL Tokens
CTicket
Partner
Tokens
(JWS, JWE)

10. Zuul
API
Device
Auth
Service
Legacy
API
Netflix
Microservices
SIGNUP
FLOW
SERVICE
User Identity
User AuthN
service
EDGE ORIGINS
MID-TIER
SERVICES
NodeJS
Services
Lolomo / Search
DRM
Other services
Discovery
API
Playback
API
Before: Multiple Token Types, Multiple Systems

11. Zuul
API
Device
Auth
Service
Legacy
API
Netflix
Microservices
SIGNUP
FLOW
SERVICE
User Identity
User AuthN
Service
EDGE ORIGINS
MID-TIER
SERVICES
NodeJS
Services
Lolomo /
Search
DRM
Other services
Discovery
API
Playback
API
Cookie
Service
MSL
Service
Partner
Service
EAS
EDGE AUTHENTICATION SERVICES
After: Passport Replaces Multiple Tokens

12. EDGE AUTHENTICATION SERVICES
Zuul
API
Device
Auth
Service
Legacy
API
Netflix
Microservices
SIGNUP
FLOW
SERVICE
User Identity
User AuthN
Service
EDGE ORIGINS
MID-TIER
SERVICES
NodeJS
Services
Lolomo /
Search
DRM
Other services
Discovery
API
Playback
API
Cookie
Service
MSL
Service
Partner
Service
EAS
User AuthN & Data

13. Device Activation & Authentication
?
?

14. For 2000+ Device Types (and growing)
http://devices.netflix.com

15. Recent Team Conference Talks
Team members recently presented some of the work of
the team at QCon San Francisco (and were two of the
top three attended talks at the conference!):
● Scaling Patterns for Netflix’s Edge
https://tiny.cc/NetflixScale
● User & Device Identity for
Microservices @ Netflix Scale
https://tiny.cc/TokenAgnosticIdentity

16. Access & Identity Management Technology Stack

17. Engineering Manager

18. AIM Engineering Manager Role
● The Challenge: Balance delivering quality software at high velocity while
ensuring the high performance, security and availability of our systems.
● The High-Level: Have a strong background in software engineering,
distributed systems design and operations and agile project management;
previous experience leading a talented and capable team of very senior
software engineers.
● The Bonus: Have experience leading the application of access & identity
management technologies at significant scale
● The Details: https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/870444

19. What Makes A Great
Engineering Manager?
● Vision & Strategy: translate
business needs to the team’s work
● Execution: plan and deliver
solutions
● Technology: be a trusted advisor
to your team and partners
● People: recruit, motivate, develop
senior contributors
See: https://tiny.cc/GreatEM
VISION
Strategize &
Communicate
Team Vision
EXECUTION
Plan & Execute
Effectively
TECHNOLOGY
Maintain
Technical
Acumen to
Guide Team
PEOPLE
Build & Maintain
Talent- Dense
Team &
Partnerships

20. Interested?
Contact me for more information!
Karen Casella
Engineering Director
kcasella@netflix.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/kcasella
@kcasella