Principal Software Engineer

Principal Software Engineer

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.

This role falls within the Core Media Technology (CMT) team in DEEP&T's Media Engineering organization. CMT is one of our Research and Advanced Development teams whose focus is in the domain of video and audio processing that drives innovative enhancements into our video processing platform for live and on-demand video streaming delivery.

Job Summary:

You will be focused on research and development for future generation image and video coding especially through the application of ML/AI methods.

You will participate and represent Disney at AOM and connect with academic research groups, conferences and other standard bodies such as MPEG, IETF, and VQEG.

You will be part of a team conducting innovative research and advanced development involving advanced computer vision algorithms and applied ML/AI techniques to address the tasks such as media enhancement, understanding, analysis, compression, and enhancing storytelling through innovative media experiences.

You will have the opportunity to conduct multidisciplinary research and implementation in video technologies, including video processing, encoding and E2E video streaming for both live and on-demand use cases.

You will have the opportunity to design video algorithms and software workflows for the purposes of achieving velocity, scale, and efficiency to further optimize our media platform.

As a domain focused Principal Engineer, you are expected to be a thought leader and technical domain expert both within and beyond the organization. You will be driving architectural innovation and significant IP generation both internally and at the standards level. You will be directly influencing our strategy and representing the organization in technical discussions. Your leadership is visionary and strategic. Your decisions are expected to shape our long-term strategy and product development with contributions critical to initiatives and innovation. You will be regularly working with senior leaders to drive major technical advancements. Your influence is global and enduring.

Our CMT team is global, with resources from Zurich, Bangalore, throughout the US and in Beijing and coordination and collaboration across these is expected.

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

• Minimum of 10 years of experience in related field
• Deep expertise in video coding standards such as AV1, AV2, AVC, HEVC, VVC
• Strong algorithm background for both traditional block based and emerging neural network based video coding tools
• A strong background in applying deep learning techniques to video processing tasks such as video enhancement, video understanding, video coding and analysis.
• A proven track record of IP generation
• In-depth understanding and experience with multimedia stack (e.g. video formats, encoders/decoders, video playback/players), multimedia frameworks, and video coding/processing methods.
• A proven track record of success and demonstrable experience in research or advanced development in video coding / media processing or adjacent fields (video quality, computer vision, computer graphics)

Required Education

• Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field with 10+ years of directly related industry experience in video codecs

The hiring range for this position in San Francisco, CA is $206,400 - $276,700 per year and in Morrisville, NC is $175,500 - $235,400 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.