Principal Software Engineer

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology

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.

Technology marries 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:

• 1.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.
• 2.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.
• 3.Innovation: We develop and implement groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms and solve complex and distinctive technical problems.

Job Summary

Join us at Metadata Engineering, a driving force within the Media Engineering organization, where we fuel the magic of Disney Entertainment and ESPN Technology. Our team is dedicated to crafting, refining, and disseminating content metadata across our platforms with unparalleled precision.

Imagine being part of a mission to ensure that every piece of content is not just showcased, but gloriously represented, enhancing the viewer experience across Disney Streaming platforms and beyond. We’re not just revolutionizing streaming video; we’re reshaping it entirely.

We’re on the lookout for an exceptional Principal Software Engineer to elevate our team to new heights. As a key player, you’ll spearhead the technical architecture, implementation, and enhancement of services vital to managing rights and availabilities across our extensive catalog, including Disney+, Hulu, and more.

Your passion for iterative improvement will be crucial as we continually refine our software systems, domain stack, and data organization. You’ll drive agile and continuous development, ensuring our systems maintain peak performance and reliability.
Join us and immerse yourself in cutting‑edge technologies such as Django/Python, Springboot/Java, MySQL, Postgres, and harness the power of AWS native resources like Kinesis, DynamoDB, S3, SNS, and SQS, alongside Kafka. Be at the forefront of innovation and shape the future of streaming entertainment with us.

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role

• Define technical direction, strategy, and technology adoption for the Content Metadata domain across Disney+, Hulu, and more.
• Lead architectural reviews and oversee Descriptive, Rights, and Availabilities of the Content Catalog.
• Design well‑architected solutions, and iterate development following agile best practices.
• Develop data‑driven software systems aligned with business needs.
• Drive performance and cost optimization through metrics analysis.
• Advocate for best engineering practices, ensuring code quality and robust testing.
• Collaborate on novel solutions and innovate by challenging existing architectural choices.
• Ensure quality delivery by monitoring progress and directing when necessary.
• Expertise in technologies such as Springboot/Java, Django/Python, AWS services (Kinesis, DynamoDB, S3, SNS, SQS), MySQL, Postgres, and Kafka.

Basic Qualifications

• Minimum of 10 years related work experience.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent field, with 10 years of progressive software development experience.
• Proficiency in Java, Python, or similar languages.
• Demonstrated ability to implement improvement changes on production systems while concurrently adding new features to meet team initiatives.
• 6 years of expertise in core Computer Science principles, including Object‑Oriented programming, data structures, and algorithms (hashing, trees, graphs, search, etc.).
• 6 years of experience with both relational (SQL‑based) and non‑relational databases (DynamoDB, Elasticache), as well as messaging technologies (Kinesis, Kafka, SQS, SNS).
• Proven track record in data modeling and streamlining data from multiple sources into a normalized format to enhance user experiences.
• Experience with high‑performance service or stream computing at large scale.

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of media rights & window rules.
• Experience with metadata enrichment techniques leveraging ML/AI models (such as extraction of media embeddings, for example).

Department‑Specific Boiler Plates

Product Engineering

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 hiring range for this position in California is $184,300 to $247,100 per year and in New York is $193,100 to $258,900 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.