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.

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.

We are redefining how streaming media is delivered, experienced, and scaled across a global ecosystem. From live and linear streaming to VOD workflows, advertising integrations, metadata platforms, and playback clients, our mission is to build a cohesive, high-performing media platform that powers world-class viewer experiences.

We are seeking a Principal Software Architect to operate at the intersection of strategy and execution, shaping end-to-end solutions across the Media Engineering ecosystem. This role is not confined to a single domain. You will architect systems that span ingest, processing, orchestration, distribution, and playback across platforms such as Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN.

This is a hands-on architecture role for a technical leader who can define vision, influence at scale, and dive deep into code and design when needed.

What You'll Do

Architecture & Technical Strategy

• Define and drive end-to-end solution architecture across Live, Linear, and VOD streaming workflows.
• Establish architectural patterns that unify media ingest, processing, metadata, ads, distribution, and playback ecosystems.
• Lead cross-domain design for integrations with Ad platforms, metadata services, rights systems, and client applications.
• Contribute to long-term technical strategy, ensuring scalability, resiliency, and cost efficiency across the media supply chain.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Partner with Engineering, Product, Program Management, and stakeholders teams to deliver cohesive platform solutions.
• Influence technical direction across multiple teams and organizations without direct authority.
• Lead architecture reviews, drive alignment, and resolve complex cross-system challenges.

System Design & Implementation

• Design and document high-scale, distributed systems supporting millions of concurrent streams and global content distribution.
• Contribute to implementation where necessary, including prototyping, coding, and validating architectural decisions.
• Author clear architectural artifacts including solution designs, system diagrams, and technical proposals.

Operational Excellence

• Champion best practices in observability, reliability, performance optimization, and cost management.
• Guide teams in building resilient systems with strong SLAs/SLOs.
• Use metrics and data to continuously improve system performance and user experience.

Innovation & Continuous Improvement

• Challenge existing architectures and introduce modern approaches to evolving platform capabilities.
• Stay ahead of industry trends in streaming technologies, ad tech, and media workflows.
• Drive iterative improvements across systems, workflows, and developer experience.

Basic Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, with significant time in architecture and distributed systems design.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience
• Proven experience designing and scaling high-throughput, low-latency systems in a cloud environment.
• Strong proficiency in one or more languages such as Java, Python, or similar.
• Deep understanding of microservices architecture, event-driven systems, and API design.
• Experience with AWS or similar cloud platforms, including services such as S3, DynamoDB, Kinesis, SNS/SQS, or Kafka.
• Strong foundation in data modeling, system design, and performance optimization.
• Ability to write production-quality code and contribute hands-on when needed.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence senior stakeholders and cross-functional teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with media streaming systems, including Live, Linear, and VOD workflows.
• Knowledge of video delivery protocols (HLS, DASH), encoding/transcoding pipelines, and CDN distribution.
• Experience with media player and client integrations for video playback
• Familiarity with Ad Tech ecosystems, including SSAI, and ad decisioning systems.
• Experience working with player/client technologies across web, mobile, and connected devices.
• Exposure to machine learning applications in media workflows (e.g., content enrichment, personalization).
• Prior experience operating in a large-scale streaming platform environment.

What Sets You Apart

• You think in systems, not silos, and can connect architecture across domains.
• You balance vision with execution, capable of both defining strategy and delivering outcomes.
• You are a force multiplier, elevating teams through influence, clarity, and technical leadership.
• You are comfortable operating in ambiguity and driving alignment across complex organizations.

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 NY, NY is $197,400 to $264,700 per year and in Santa Monica, CA is $188,400 to $252,600 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.