Principal Software Engineer

On any given day at Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology, we’re reimagining ways to create magical viewing experiences for the world’s most beloved stories while also transforming our media business for the future. Whether that’s evolving our streaming and digital products in new and immersive ways, powering worldwide advertising and distribution to enhance flexibility and efficiency, or delivering Disney’s unmatched entertainment and sports content, every day is a moment to make a difference to partners and to hundreds of millions of people around the world.

A few reasons why we believe you’d love working here:

• Building the future of Disney’s media: DE&E Technologists are designing and building the infrastructure that will power our media, advertising, and distribution businesses for years to come.

• Reach & Scale: The products and platforms this group builds and operates delight millions of consumers every minute of every day – from Disney+ and Hulu, to ABC News and Entertainment, to ESPN and ESPN+, and much more.

• Innovation: We develop and implement groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms and improve how audiences experience sports, entertainment & news.

Media Engineering is an innovative organization that is focused on providing the best possible video playback experience, art, and metadata to customers around the world, powered by exceptional technology. This strategic work requires streamlining and repurposing technology across different business and distribution channels – including streaming, linear, and theatrical – so that technology can ebb and flow across the needs of the business.

Media Metadata Tooling Team

The MMT team is responsible for building innovative tools within the media and metadata supply chain. We focus on enhancing visibility and operational efficiency by developing solutions that empower operations teams to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of media and metadata pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Lead with influence and authority in a matrix organization.

• Work with a team of engineers building software in a collaborative development process.

• Collaborate with business partners to understand and refine requirements.

• Eliminate ambiguity in projects and communicate direction to engineers to help team members work in parallel.

• Ramp up quickly on existing software to deliver incremental, integrated solutions in a complex environment

• Build high-performance, stable, scalable systems to be deployed in an enterprise setting

• Lead high-level architecture discussions and planning sessions with minimal oversight.

• Participate in the code review process by assessing pull requests.

• Author and recommend technical proposals and root cause analyses.

• Establish engineering practices and standards within the team to drive quality and excellence.

• Work with project stakeholders to define scope and objectives, communicating requirements to development teams.

• Identify, analyze, prioritize, mitigate and communicate project risks to internal and external stakeholders.

• Lead technical feasibility, implementation approach, deployment strategies, and QA efforts.

• Provide mentoring and advice for other engineers as well as help to recruit new talent.

Basic Qualification

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering and development, with most recent experience leading an engineering or operations organization.

• Effective ability to work in a fast-growth, or rapid-change environment.

• Experience leading complex high-profile projects and viewed as the “go-to” individual.

• Solid communication skills – written, and oral

• Understanding of agile methodologies and git source control

• Experience with Object Oriented Programming languages.

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience

Preferred Qualification

• Experience in Live/Linear streaming ecosystem architecture

• Experience building and working with EPG systems, airing management systems as well as linear orchestration systems.

• Confidence when dealing with the full technology stack in domains of Data Systems & Pipelines, Distributed Services, and front-end (API/UI), as well as cloud-based technologies.

• Experience leading a distributed workforce across multiple time zones.

#DISNEYTECH

The hiring range for this position in Seattle, WA and in New York City, NY is $193,100.00 to $258,900.00 per year; the hiring range for this position in Santa Monica/Burbank/Glendale/L.A., California and in Bristol, Connecticut is $184,300.00 to 247,100.00; and the hiring range for this position in San Francisco, California is $201,900.00 to $270,700.00 per year. The base pay actually offered will take into account internal equity and also may vary depending on the candidate’s geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors. A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to the full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the level and position offered.