Akash Saxena, CTO, ‪@JioHotstar‬ | Cricket, Managing Scale and Future of OTT | SCALER POD 07

Welcome to another episode of ScalerPod by Scaler, where our host Arnav talks to the leaders of the biggest tech companies from India about the software engineering challenges they are solving and the products they are building for scale! In this episode, we have Akash Saxena who is the CTO at Hotstar and previously has been with OpenTable for about 12 years. Currently, he focuses on building & scaling Disney+ Hotstar to reach millions of users across the globe and to provide entertainment through digital content and live sports streaming. As the ICC T20 World Cup is on the line, let's talk with him about Cricket, Ind vs Pak games, Handling Live Streaming for Scale, and the Future of OTT Platforms in India. 🎓 Join a FREE live masterclass: https://www.scaler.com/events/?utm_so... ⏱ Chapters: 00:00 Teaser 02:17 Introduction 03:09 A day in the life of Akash Saxena 06:50 On his journey before Hotstar 18:14 Getting started with Hotstar, Initial days, and Ind vs Pak 23:12 Making an Inhouse streaming platform and overcoming challenges 28:07 Preparing for massive scale and his F1 racing approach 38:40 Handling live buffer and delay latency 45:02 Concurring distribution and video quality 50:34 Optimizing user data and team culture 59:07 Building Watch and Play on Hotstar, Microservices 1:07:30 Scaling tech teams in Hotstar 1:18:12 Hiring requirements for the tech team 1:22:12 Advice for young people building their own Startups 1:28:23 Leadership approach, crisis management, and being customer first 1:37:58 Arnav tells about challenges he faced while his early startup days 1:40:06 Importance of modeled testing 1:43:15 Thinking for the engineering team and planning for their growth 1:49:48 Advice for freshers and about personal growth 1:58:40 Use of AI, Machine Learning in Hotstar, and the future ahead 2:05:06 Vastness of content and geographical diversification 2:08:35 Hotstar Multiplex and how watching movies is changing 2:11:52 Future of media and OTT content domain 2:14:44 Outro 🎓 Explore Scaler programs (Live Classes, 1:1 Mentorship & Real-world Projects): Modern Software & AI Engineering: https://www.scaler.com/academy/?utm_s... AI Data Scientist & Machine Learning: https://www.scaler.com/data-science-c... DevOps, Cloud & AI Platform Engineering: https://www.scaler.com/devops-course/... Advanced AI/ML with Agentic AI Specialisation: https://www.scaler.com/ai-machine-lea... AI Engineering Advanced Certification by IIT Roorkee CEC: https://www.scaler.com/iit-roorkee-ad... ▶ Related videos: How Pocket FM's CTO Is Using AI to Tell Stories at Scale | Umesh Bude, CTO at Pocket FM | Scaler Pod:    • How Pocket FM's CTO Is Using AI to Tell St...   Switching for Salary Hike? | Don't Jump Just for CTC- ft. Akash Saxena Ex-CTO, Hotstar | @SCALER:    • Switching for Salary Hike? | Don't Jump Ju...   Kailash Nadh, CTO @zerodhaonline|Side projects, hacker culture and scaling with sense| SCALER POD 05:    • Kailash Nadh, CTO @zerodhaonline|Side proj...   🎥 Related playlist:    • Scaler Pod | Builders, Systems & Decisions   🌐 Website: https://www.scaler.com/?utm_source=yo... 🔔 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/Scaler?sub_co... 📲 Connect: Instagram:   / scaler_official   Linkedin:   / scalerofficial   X (Twitter):   / scaler_official   Facebook:   / scalerofficial   About Scaler Scaler is one of India's leading tech education platforms helping aspiring software engineers and professionals build successful careers in Software Engineering, AI, Data Science, Machine Learning, DevOps, Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity, and Product Management. Learn from industry experts through live classes, personalized mentorship, hands-on projects, and a job-focused curriculum designed for the modern tech industry. #Hotstar #ScalerPod #Podcast #Scaler #LiveCricket #HotstarLive