New Job Listing Suggests YouTube Wants To Develop More Mobile Video Effects

A new job listing for a Next Generation Video Effects Technical Lead/Manager at YouTube suggests that the world’s largest video platform may be looking to incorporate some of the filters, stickers, captions, and other special effects features that have proliferated across competing services like Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, and Periscope.

The listing is for a position on YouTube’s Mobile Video Creation team, which is “working on other projects in the area of video creation and effects, providing unique and innovative video creation flows unlike any other platform.” YouTube launched basic black-and-white and sepia filters in 2015, notes Variety, which first spotted the listing. In 2016 the company launched mobile live streaming. Future effects will live within YouTube’s iOS and Android apps, according to the listing.

YouTube noted that the goal in honing any new features would be to “engage YouTube creators and their fans in lightweight, fun, and expressive video creation.” Applicants’ “design intuition should lean towards elegance and simplicity, and [they] should have experience with mobile and social platforms,” YouTube says.

Snapchat has served as a progenitor of sorts for a slew of new video effects — the most popular of which is Lenses — that users can seamlessly incorporate into their photos and clips. Similarly, Facebook launched its own Masks feature, whereby users can adorn themselves in augmented-reality costumes that can be integrated into photos, videos, and Live broadcasts. Periscope has also toyed with real-time effects, and Instagram has launched editing features within its own Stories section.