Sr Principal Software Engineer

Job ID 10126779 Location New York, New York, United States / Santa Monica, California, United States / Glendale, California, United States / San Francisco, California, United States / Seattle, Washington, United States Business Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology Date posted Sep. 09, 2025

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Job Summary:

Senior Principal Software Engineer

Media Engineering - Seattle, WA

Description

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 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.

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.

This Senior Principal Software Engineer position is an executive and architectural role within the Media Engineering Ecosystem Architecture team. This role is responsible for leading multi-pillar, multi-disciplinary large scale, strategic and complex company initiatives that intersect with the Media Platform domain which powers content and media metadata for all Disney direct-to-consumer experiences and advertising systems. This role provides technical leadership and industry experience to ensure both the successful execution of immediate business objectives and the long-term innovation and capability of the media technology ecosystem. In addition to working across pillars and disciplines within the company, this role has the opportunity to be a direct representative of our technology and innovation within the greater technology community.

Responsibilities

Lead the design and roadmap for the various areas of the Media Platform including acquisition, processing, storage, and distribution of media and metadata components from both first and third party providers to multiple consumers across the Disney direct-to-consumer experiences, advertising systems, and data analysis.
Partner with development, product, program, operations, architecture, and others in a matrix structure to perform project discovery and technical design execution at a multi-pillar level
Be an ambassador from Media Engineering to teams across The Walt Disney Company to evangelize platform metadata capabilities and understand unique use-cases for design and inclusion in continued platform expansion
Work with product, engineering, and leadership groups in DE&E Product & Technology to foster a community and culture of quality, innovation, and experimentation across the organization
Provide guidance and mentor the technical and business teams and individuals by providing solutions, recommendations, and documentation driving continuous improvement.
Follow incidents within the domain and partner with teams to derive insights for resilience and self-healing capabilities into future iterations
Engage in industry level conversations around technology standards and innovation as a representative of the Walt Disney Company

Qualifications

Bachelor’s Degree in technical field or equivalent experience
12+ years of experience in software development
Skills collaborating with multiple distributed teams to build alignment and find common paths forward
Experience designing, developing, and testing services and workflows to support multiple data ingestion paths and formats
Experience designing, developing, and testing backend services and systems to support high scale distribution and denormalized edge data access
Experience building, managing, and testing an authoritative normalized datastore with robust data sanitation supporting complex tiered model structures with distributed update notifications
Experience building, managing, and testing a multi-tenant system and support environment allowing for operational flows without development intervention
Experience building, testing, and deploying a video player stack across a diverse device and application ecosystem
Experience using and implementing industry media (DASH, HLS, CMAF) and metadata standards (SCTE, CableLabs, ESNI) as well as state of the art practices
Experience engaging and collaborating in industry standards bodies
Strong interpersonal, administrative, presentation and analytical skills
Clear communication, collaborative teamwork skills, and ability to build consensus with multiple stakeholders
A broad, enterprise-wide view of the business and varying degrees of appreciation of strategy, process & capabilities, and governance

The hiring range for this position in NYC is $234,400 to $314,300per year, in Santa Monica and Glendale is $223,700 to $300,000, in San Francisco is $245,100 to $328,600 and in Seattle is $234,400 to $314,300 per year based on a 40 hour work week. The amount of hours scheduled per week may vary based on business needs. 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.

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About Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology:

At Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology, we’re blending imagination and innovation to reimagine the ways people experience and engage with the world’s most beloved stories and products. Our work is wide-ranging and deeply sophisticated. We create amazing experiences, transform the future of media, and build products and platforms that enable the connection between people everywhere and the stories and sports they love.

Disney’s ability to marry world-class technology with one-of-a-kind creativity makes us unique. It is at the heart of our past, present, and future. We are Storytellers and Innovators. Creators and Builders. Entertainers and Engineers.

About The Walt Disney Company:

The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise that includes three core business segments: Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and Disney Experiences. From humble beginnings as a cartoon studio in the 1920s to its preeminent name in the entertainment industry today, Disney proudly continues its legacy of creating world-class stories and experiences for every member of the family. Disney’s stories, characters and experiences reach consumers and guests from every corner of the globe. With operations in more than 40 countries, our employees and cast members work together to create entertainment experiences that are both universally and locally cherished.

This position is with Disney Streaming Technology LLC, which is part of a business we call Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology.

Disney Streaming Technology LLC is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, military or veteran status, medical condition, genetic information or disability, or any other basis prohibited by federal, state or local law. Disney champions a business environment where ideas and decisions from all people help us grow, innovate, create the best stories and be relevant in a constantly evolving world.

DISABILITY ACCOMMODATION FOR EMPLOYMENT APPLICATIONS

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 in order 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.

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