Design a Video Transcoding Pipeline

Hard

System design · Media · TikTok · Netflix

Design a video transcoding pipeline. Uploads (resumable, direct to storage, validated) are split on keyframes, transcoded in parallel across multiple renditions on preemptible workers, packaged into HLS/DASH segments and manifests with thumbnails, and published with reliable status transitions and retries for partial failures. ~500K uploads/day, median 8 minutes. The surrounding product (catalog, comments, recommendations) is covered by the YouTube/Netflix problems.

Requirements

Handle resumable upload and input validation
Use queues and workers for multiple renditions
Store manifests, thumbnails, and status transitions reliably

Workspace