David Ellison's Paramount is shaking up a key engineering group as it looks to catch up to Netflix's tech

• Paramount Skydance just reshaped the leadership structure of a key streaming team.
• A Paramount streaming VP unveiled the arrangement hours before the company won the WBD bidding war.
• The decision to merge technical teams is part of a unification of Paramount+ and Pluto TV.

Paramount Skydance's plan to beat Netflix isn't just about buying Warner Bros. Discovery.

CEO David Ellison is making moves behind the scenes to help the 114-year-old Paramount operate more like a tech company.

Paramount is changing the internal structure of key engineering groups for its streaming services, with the goal of improving user experience and facilitating "AI enablement and automated testing," according to an internal memo viewed by Business Insider.

Victor Marinelli, the VP of engineering at Paramount+, told software engineers and product design staffers on Thursday afternoon that the company is combining the Paramount+ Global Quality Engineering team and the Software Test Engineering unit for Pluto TV, its free streamer.

This organizational shuffle comes as the company prepares to put Paramount+ and Pluto TV on a unified tech platform for the first time — a process known internally as "convergence." The convergence operation is one of Paramount's top streaming priorities in the first quarter, Business Insider previously reported. Paramount also told investors on Monday morning that it's planning to combine its namesake streamer and HBO Max if its WBD acquisition goes through.

"We are evolving our operating model to strengthen accountability, deepen technical specialization, and ensure we are positioned for long term success," Marinelli said in his memo to streaming staffers.

Paramount's unified Global Quality Engineering team will have "five core pillars," each led by a current director or senior director:

• Client Experience, Playback and Front End Quality
• Backend Services and Platform Quality
• Readiness & Release (R&R) and Production Quality
• Data Quality, Analytics
• QE Innovation

Bringing together technical teams for Paramount+ and Pluto TV will help the streamers "support increasingly complex launches," such as tech stack convergence, live events like UFC matches, and "emerging product initiatives," Marinelli wrote.

While Marinelli didn't go into detail about new product features, Paramount+ is planning to add short-form video and is also brainstorming ways to bring shoppable features and user-generated content to its flagship streaming service, Business Insider previously reported.

A software engineer briefed on the changes to the GQE team said that the move is about making the team more efficient while better using AI.

Six Paramount employees told Business Insider that the company's tech is still behind that of streaming leaders like Netflix.

Jason Kim, Paramount's EVP of data and insights, told staffers in late January that streaming tech was at "the very top of Dave's priority list of things that he has to solve," in reference to Ellison.

"For us to make this all work, we need to transform Paramount+ in a way that's going to really be able to compete," Kim said in a meeting, a recording of which was obtained by Business Insider.

A Paramount spokesperson declined to comment.

Read the memo outlining the changes below, with team leaders' current titles added by Business Insider in square brackets:

Hi everyone,

I'm excited to share an important update about the future structure of Global Quality Engineering (GQE). As we continue to scale to meet the ongoing needs of the business and support increasingly complex launches including convergence, UFC, live events, new platform expansions, and emerging product initiatives, we are evolving our operating model to strengthen accountability, deepen technical specialization, and ensure we are positioned for long term success.

Over the past year, the scope of GQE has grown significantly across client, backend, platform, data, and emerging technologies. To support that growth and to create a clearer, more scalable foundation, we are introducing a new leadership structure built around five core pillars of quality engineering.

These pillars represent the capabilities that will carry our organization forward, and each will be led by a dedicated senior leader. Furthermore, they are not intended to create silos, but to strengthen clarity of ownership while enabling even deeper cross team collaboration across the entire GQE organization.

Organizational Pillars of GQE

1. Client Experience, Playback and Front End Quality

Leader: Susmita Mamidenna [senior director of software test engineering]

Responsible for all client platforms, playback and VPT, live events quality, A/B testing, accessibility, content launches, and client automated testing development and performance.

2. Backend Services and Platform Quality

Leader: Sachin Jaiswal [senior director of quality assurance engineering]

Covering CMS and MAM, APIs, transcoding, Ad Tech, Enterprise Platform and backend performance/service reliability.

3. Readiness & Release (R&R) and Production Quality

Leader: Karami Lenhardt [senior director of software quality assurance engineering]

Centralized owners of downstream regression (Apple & Android) and production monitoring, ensuring consistent readiness for convergence, UFC, and other major releases. We continue to invest in the R&R process and plan on expanding it to Pluto post-MVP, as well as onboarding additional platforms starting with Roku.

4. Data Quality, Analytics

Leader: Michael Jones [director of release & tools enablement engineering]

Owning ETL pipeline testing, analytics validation, data quality, DTE tooling and automated testing, and collaboration with MOPS and data partners.

5. QE Innovation

Leader: Max McCreery [director of software quality engineering]

Driving our automated testing framework strategy (TAF), AI tooling and governance, automated test development and maintenance, QE tooling integrations, test environments and cross GQE innovation initiatives.

Why This Change and Why Now

As our products scale and new business lines accelerate, the expectations placed on GQE continue to grow. This structure positions us to:

• Build specialized centers of excellence in the most critical areas of the platform
• Scale consistently across regions and product lines
• Strengthen test strategies, technical ownership and accountability
• Improve cross team alignment and responsiveness
• Support AI enablement and automated testing at every layer including client, backend, platform, and data
• Ensure quality remains a foundational, strategic advantage as the business evolves

This structure positions GQE to meet the moment and to lead confidently as the platform continues to grow.

Transition Period and Delivery Commitments

We will be entering a transition period over the coming months as leadership responsibilities and workflows align to the five pillar model.

It is important to note that there will be no disruption in support for convergence, UFC, live events, or other ongoing launches. We will be deliberate, coordinated, and collaborative to ensure continuity of execution and to avoid introducing any delivery risk.

Looking Ahead

This is an exciting moment for GQE. The combination of Pluto STE and P+ GQE under a unified GQE structure reflects not only where we are today but where we need to go as the platform and our business ambitions expand. I am proud of what this organization continues to deliver and confident in the impact this evolution will unlock for the teams, for the product, and for the business.

Thank you all for your continued partnership, resilience, and excellence. If you have questions, please feel free to reach out directly.

Please join me in congratulating our pillar leads!

Thank you,

Victor