Principal Software Development Engineer in Test

Job Posting

Title:

Principal Software Development Engineer in Test Req

Description:

On any given day at Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology, we're reimagining ways to create magical viewing experiences for the world's most beloved stories while also transforming Disney's media business for the future. Whether that's evolving our streaming and digital products in new and immersive ways, powering worldwide advertising and distribution to maximize flexibility and efficiency, or delivering Disney's unmatched entertainment and sports content, every day is a moment to make a difference to partners and to hundreds of 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. The Product Engineering team is a unified organization responsible for the engineering of Disney Entertainment & ESPN digital and streaming products and platforms — including product engineering, media engineering, quality engineering, and the engineering behind personalization, commerce, lifecycle, and identity — across streaming platforms including Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+.The

Quality Engineering team is seeking a Principal Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) to serve as the technical authority for backend services quality across our digital and streaming products. As a Principal engineer, you will set the strategy, architecture, and standards for automated testing of backend microservices and APIs, partnering closely with backend engineering teams to embed quality throughout the development lifecycle.

You will be a driving force in modernizing how the team builds software — championing the adoption of AI-assisted engineering tools and workflows, and personally using them to build production code, automated tests, internal tooling, skills, and agents that accelerate backend quality engineering  bring a force-multiplier mindset: amplifying the impact of engineers across the organization through design reviews, mentorship, and technical strategy — kickstarting new initiatives, frameworks, or practices yourself, then handing them off to other engineers to own and scale so you can move to the next highest-impact problem.

This role also expects the versatility to step into front-end or client-side test automation when priorities require it, though backend services remain the primary and dominant focus.

Ideal candidates are proactive, technically deep, and passionate about raising the bar for quality engineering across a large, complex backend ecosystem, and bring real hands-on experience operating within a large-scale consumer streaming architecture such as Disney+, Hulu, or a comparable OTT platform.

On a daily basis you should bring:

A track record of driving clarity and simplicity in backend test architecture despite significant ambiguity and complexity.

A force-multiplier mindset — amplifying the impact of teams across the organization through design reviews, mentorship, and technical strategy.

Deep ownership of the quality and reliability of the backend services and APIs your organization…