Principal Software Engineer - C++

Job ID 10135185 Location Santa Monica, California, United States / Bristol, Connecticut, United States / Glendale, California, United States / San Francisco, California, United States / New York, New York, United States / Seattle, Washington, United States Business Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology Date posted Nov. 18, 2025

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Job Summary:

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 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.

Job Summary:

The Hulu Client Engineering team is looking for a Principal Engineer to provide strong, hands-on technical leadership for a team of engineers as you work together to extend, evolve, improve, and support two of our in-production multi-platform native runtimes. These native runtimes host a web-based client app across a variety of living-room platforms and devices, and you will have a unique opportunity to help set the vision for a technical strategy for these runtimes. Your high-level goals will include improving end-user experience and migrating to new platforms/devices. You will need to address challenges including performance, stability, observability, security, cross-device support, devices with very limited resources, and improving developer experience. This role requires tenacity and resilience, thriving in a fast-paced environment with minimal or ambiguous direction, being self-directed, and balancing competing technical priorities.

***This is an onsite position, four (4) days a week, and must sit in one of our technology offices above***

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

Bring advanced native engineering skills to be a critical member and technical leader of a team of engineers responsible for two of our multi-platform native runtimes
Help define a roadmap and technical direction for these runtimes that power Hulu across many living room device models
Architect, design, build, and improve functionality at the core of these native frameworks, including leading high-level architectural discussions and planning sessions, especially around the improvement of software observability
Review code from the team and provide technical feedback and guidance, as well as writing some key code yourself
Collaborate closely with other Disney teams, including our Hulu living room client engineering team, media player engineering teams, services engineering teams, product managers, and design teams, and help understand and explain device limitations and requirements
Work with hardware manufacturing partners to vet new hardware from a client application perspective

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

Candidates should have 10+ years of C/C++ experience on large codebases
Experience with creating technical roadmaps and providing technical direction, leadership, guidance, and feedback to a team of engineers
Hands-on experience with performance and memory profiling, tuning, and optimization, preferably on resource-constrained devices
Strong knowledge of software architecture and design patterns
Expertise working with versions of C++ both before and after C++11
Excellent interpersonal and communication skills

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with embedded systems and/or writing portable multi-platform code on resource constrained systems
Experience in designing and implementing software observability instrumentation in a large production codebase, and using the resulting observability data to identify and resolve stability and performance issues
Experience with the internals of browser technology such as WebKit, Chromium, Cobalt, etc
Experience/interest in leveraging AI tooling/agents creatively to accelerate development velocity on large codebases
Graphics experience with OpenGL/EGL, OpenGL ES, Vulkan, Metal, etc
Understanding of cross-device dependency management, and experience using build runners/compilation tools for multi-platform projects
Some familiarity with streaming video (DASH or HLS protocol), codecs, and DRM

Required Education

Bachelor’s degree or better in Computer Science or a related technical field or equivalent job experience

The hiring range for this position in Los Angeles, CA is $188,400 - $252,600, Seattle, WA / New York, NY is $197,400 - $264,700 per year and in San Francisco, CA is $206,400 - $276,700 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.

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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.

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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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