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Lead Software Engineer

Job ID 10121134 Location Seattle, Washington, United States / Santa Monica, California, United States / San Francisco, California, United States / New York, New York, United States Business Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology Date posted May 16, 2025
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Job Summary:

Technology is at the heart of Disney’s past, present, and future. Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology is a global organization of engineers, product developers, designers, technologists, data scientists, and more – all working to build and advance the technological backbone for Disney’s media business globally.

The team marries technology with creativity to build world-class products, enhance storytelling, and drive velocity, innovation, and scalability for our businesses. We are Storytellers and Innovators. Creators and Builders. Entertainers and Engineers. We work with every part of The Walt Disney Company’s media portfolio to advance the technological foundation and consumer media touch points serving millions of people around the world. 

Here are a few reasons why we think you’d love working here:

  • Building the future of Disney’s media: Our Technologists are designing and building the products and platforms that will power our media, advertising, and distribution businesses for years to come.
  • Reach, Scale & Impact: More than ever, Disney’s technology and products serve as a signature doorway for fans' connections with the company’s brands and stories. Disney+. Hulu. ESPN. ABC. ABC News…and many more. These products and brands – and the unmatched stories, storytellers, and events they carry – matter to millions of people globally. 
  • Innovation: We develop and implement groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms, and solve complex and distinctive technical problems.

Product Engineering is a unified team responsible for the engineering of Disney Entertainment & ESPN digital and streaming products and platforms. This includes product engineering, media engineering, quality assurance, engineering behind personalization, commerce, lifecycle, and identity.

The Content Experience & Delivery team builds systems that provide data at scale to teams across Disney+, Hulu, and Star+. We implement reliable, high-request services that deliver data that helps power streaming user experiences, across web, mobile, and living room devices. We are looking for a software engineer who wants to build and operate these critical services that support all of our users!

We're a fast-paced, dynamic, collaborative and fun team, and looking forward to finding out more about you!

You'll join a hardworking group of engineers who strive to create the best-in-class Recommendations & Discovery experiences for hundreds of millions of customers across Disney+, Hulu, ABC and ESPN. You will collaborate with Data Science/ML and Product teams to innovate on, develop and operate Recommendation Systems at scale.

As a Lead Software Engineer, you will collaborate closely with engineers, project managers, and product managers to find the best solution for our viewers. You will drive projects end-to-end: designing the initial solution; finding alignment with stakeholders; execution of the necessary code; and overseeing the deployment of services to production. Members of the team look to your code and documentation as examples of What To Do. You value good-faith collaboration, driving best practices, and promoting excellence on your team. If this sounds like you, we would love to hear from you!

What You Will Do:

  • Lead the development of well-architected solutions and delivery of maintainable code.
  • Lead development of testing methodologies and delivery of test frameworks.
  • Lead technical design and implementation of complex new features.
  • Expertly break down work at the epic level, setting project milestones with reasonable deadlines.
  • Design new solutions and ensure alignment across engineering and product teams.
  • Prioritize work within a project to deliver on the most necessary or urgent requirements.
  • Write code to implement new features or optimize existing services.
  • Effectively communicate with stakeholders on project progress.
  • Anticipate and mitigate risk on projects.
  • Determine the most efficient means to sufficiently test new code: unit tests, integration tests, performance tests, etc.
  • Participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation for our tier-1 critical services facing millions of users worldwide.
  • Use logs, monitoring tools, and work with developers to determine root causes across distributed components.
  • Set best practices for the team for on-call responsibilities such as deployments, monitoring, and investigating incidents
  • Perform code reviews for members of the team, bearing a sense of responsibility for approved code.
  • Coach and mentor teammates in an open, respectful, flexible, empathetic manner. Help onboard new team members.
  • Actively participate in daily stand-ups and other scrum ceremonies.

What You Will Bring:

Basic Qualifications:

  • Minimum of 7 years of related experience crafting and operating backend services.
  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience
  • 1+ years of related experience crafting and operating large-scale, high-availability backend services.
  • Experience with algorithms and ML model implementation & operation at scale for consumer facing experiences.
  • Demonstrated knowledge crafting and operating JVM services.
  • Proven track record of designing and driving consensus on backend architectures.
  • Demonstrated knowledge of asynchronous programming.
  • Demonstrated knowledge of object-oriented programming patterns.
  • Demonstrated knowledge of functional programming patterns.
  • Demonstrated knowledge of source control systems and CI/CD pipelines.
  • 1+ years experience operating within a Public Cloud Provider (e.g., AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud)
  • Experience with observability tools for metrics, logging, and monitoring (e.g., Datadog, Splunk, Grafana)
  • Ability to design and understand high-level architecture and frameworks as well as dive deep into individual technical components and systems.
  • Ability to pragmatically drive technical projects with an analytical and data-driven approach.
  • Demonstrated knowledge of AGILE/Scrum practices.
  • Skilled at work breakdown and task estimation.
  • Strong communication skills and a desire to share your knowledge with team members and others across Disney Streaming.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Demonstrated knowledge of messaging technologies (e.g., Kafka, Kinesis, SQS, etc.)
  • Experience working with remote global teams and a flexible schedule to meet in different time zones.

#DISNEYTECH


The hiring range for this position in New York, NY and Seattle, WA is $159,500.00 to $213,900.00 per year, in San Francisco, CA is $166,800.00 - $223,600.00 and in Santa Monica, CA is $152,200.00 to $204,100.00 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.

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About Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology:

About The Walt Disney Company:

The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise that includes three core business segments: Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and Disney Experiences. From humble beginnings as a cartoon studio in the 1920s to its preeminent name in the entertainment industry today, Disney proudly continues its legacy of creating world-class stories and experiences for every member of the family. Disney’s stories, characters and experiences reach consumers and guests from every corner of the globe. With operations in more than 40 countries, our employees and cast members work together to create entertainment experiences that are both universally and locally cherished.

This position is with Disney Streaming Technology LLC, which is part of a business we call Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology.

Disney Streaming Technology LLC is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, military or veteran status, medical condition, genetic information or disability, or any other basis prohibited by federal, state or local law. Disney champions a business environment where ideas and decisions from all people help us grow, innovate, create the best stories and be relevant in a constantly evolving world.

DISABILITY ACCOMMODATION FOR EMPLOYMENT APPLICATIONS

The Walt Disney Company and its Affiliated Companies are Equal Employment Opportunity employers and welcome all job seekers including individuals with disabilities and veterans with disabilities. If you have a disability and believe you need a reasonable accommodation in order to search for a job opening or apply for a position, visit the Disney candidate disability accommodations FAQs. We will only respond to those requests that are related to the accessibility of the online application system due to a disability.

Having technical issues? View the FAQs for help.

Hiring Process

  • Where Does Your Story Begin?

    Explore Disney Careers and the Life at Disney blog to learn about all the amazing opportunities waiting to be discovered at The Walt Disney Company.

  • Be Part of the Story

    There are many different brands and businesses to explore. Once you've found the opportunity that is right for you, take the next step by completing your application.

  • The Next Chapter

    Once you've applied, you will receive an email allowing you to access your candidate dashboard. Create your login and make sure to check your dashboard often to see your application progress.

Explore this Location Seattle, WA

With a thriving food-and-drink scene, eclectic neighborhoods and a stunning coastal setting, Seattle is a dynamic urban enclave nestled in the Pacific Northwest. The city is bounded by Lake Washington in the east and Puget Sound to the west, an ideal location for water recreation and sight-seeing cruises.

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