Netflix is one of the world’s leading entertainment services with 278 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, films and games across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can play, pause and resume watching as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, and can change their plans at any time.

The Role

Within Netflix, Open Connect provides highly available, worldwide infrastructure for content production, processing, and distribution. Open Connect's transport protocol R&D (research & development) group specifically focuses on actively re-designing, tuning, and implementing improvements to the high-performance transport algorithms that deliver entertainment in the form of streaming video on demand (SVOD), live and ultra-low-latency interactive cloud gaming over the public Internet.

As a Transport Protocol R&D Intern, you will help us measure, study and understand the impact of dynamic Internet paths on SVOD content delivery and the potential challenges that arise when SVOD coexists with interactive cloud gaming. You will be exposed to modern heuristics for congestion control, loss recovery, and packet pacing for TCP-based media streams. You will learn the importance of working closely with server, client and data analytics colleagues to improve our lab-based and production (A/B) testing techniques for evaluating service performance over consumer Internet paths.

Current student pursuing a PhD in a technical field such as Computer Science, Engineering, or Math — with an expected graduation date between December 2025 or Spring/Summer 2026. 

Emerging R&D track record in one or more of:  internet network measurement, network tomography, internet service performance testing, and/or transport protocol design in support of real-time content delivery and/or interactive online games. 

Demonstrated R&D acumen through authorship of peer-reviewed ACM or IEEE conference or journal papers, peer-reviewed posters at ACM or IEEE conferences, publishing relevant open-source software projects, or similar.

Thrive in a complex, ambiguous and fast-paced environment.

Strong communication across both speech and writing.

Experience developing software for real-time data collection, network measurements, testbed orchestration, traffic data analysis, and/or protocol stack hacking. You are comfortable with software engineering best practices (e.g. version control, testing, code review, etc.)

Experience with SVOD or cloud gaming.

Involvement in open-source multimedia projects (i.e ffmpeg)

Experience with image and video quality assessment.

At Netflix, we offer a personalized experience for interns, and our aim is to offer an experience that mimics what it is like to actually work here. We match qualified interns with projects and groups based on interests and skill sets, and fully embed interns within those groups for the summer. Netflix is a unique place to work and we live by our values, so it's worth learning more about our culture.

Internships are paid and are a minimum of 12 weeks, with a choice of a few fixed start dates in May or June 2025 to accommodate varying school calendars. Conditions permitting, our 2025 summer internships will be located in our Los Gatos, CA office, or in our Los Angeles, CA office, depending on the team.

At Netflix, we carefully consider a wide range of compensation factors to determine the Intern top of market. We rely on market indicators to determine compensation and consider your specific job, skills, and experience to get it right. These considerations can cause your compensation to vary and will also be dependent on your location.

The overall market range for Netflix Internships is typically $40/hour - $110/hour.

This market range is based on total compensation (vs. only base salary), which is in line with our compensation philosophy. Netflix is a unique culture and environment. Learn more here.

We are an equal-opportunity employer and celebrate diversity, recognizing that diversity of thought and background builds stronger teams. We approach diversity and inclusion seriously and thoughtfully. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.

Job is open for no less than 7 days and will be removed when the position is filled.