Principal Software Engineer

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 touchpoints 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, and engineering behind personalization, commerce, lifecycle, and identity. Our teams build systems that power all the commerce workflows within Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology. We implement reliable, high‑request services that power user experiences across web, mobile, and living‑room devices.

• Work with a distributed team of engineers across multiple organizations building software collaboratively.
• Identify patterns that can help the teams scale, create proposals, and drive adoption of those patterns.
• Challenge current architectural choices while collaborating to solve problems in innovative ways.
• Drive adoption of consistent technical frameworks across the organization.
• Drive best engineering practices to write well‑constructed and easy‑to‑maintain code, defensive and robust tests.
• Lead through metrics – understand application performance and costs and push for better results.

• 10+ years of related experience crafting large‑scale, highly available Java, Scala, or similar services utilizing various database and messaging technologies. Strong programming skills in Java and other object‑oriented languages and a strong grasp of computer science fundamentals (data structures, algorithms, databases, etc.).
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or a comparable field of study.
• Experience using source control systems and CI/CD pipelines.
• An ability to work both independently and collaboratively.
• Champion cross‑team projects.
• Coach and mentor other specialists on the team to ensure that all software utilizes industry best practices. Collaborate efficiently with product management, technical program management, operations, and other engineering teams to capture requirements, drive implementation, and provide transparency.
• A broad perspective on problem‑solving.
• Strong communication skills and a desire to share your knowledge with team members and others.

• Experience directly managing and mentoring a team.

The hiring range for this position in New York City, NY is $197,400 to $264,700 per year and in San Francisco is $206,400 to $276,700 per year. The base pay offered will account for internal equity and 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.

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 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.