In one embodiment, a method includes receiving from a client computing device a request to upload a multimedia file from the client computing device to a service. The method includes identifying transcoding servers configured to receive and transcode multimedia files from client computing devices and store the transcoded multimedia files. The method includes sending a reply to the client computing device that includes job configuration information that includes an access token authorizing the client computing device to access the transcoding servers. The information specifies upload policies that include failover instructions for if a failure occurs during an upload from the client computing device to a first of the transcoding servers. The failover instructions include sending the access token to the first of the transcoding servers to resume the upload or sending the access token to a second of the transcoding servers to restart the upload.