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.

Content Platforms & Operations is responsible for the development and ongoing advancement of the technical and operational functions driving the worldwide distribution and monetization of Disney’s linear networks and theatrical content. This includes Disney’s media supply chain and storage, network and theatrical distribution operations, media localization, network transmission and origination, and more. The global team also plays a critical role as the primary collaboration point for Product & Technology with Disney’s EMEA, APAC, and LATAM regional business teams.

** This role is swing shift and requires flexibility to work nights, overnight shifts, weekends, and holidays.**

Job Summary:

Describe what the person will do in the role - how he/she will impact the organization.

The Media Operator is responsible for Data I/O, ingest, media prep, asset conformance, editorial, troubleshooting file issues, fixing assets, and asset validation.  The Media Operator will need to understand both horizontal (16x9) and vertical (9x16) workflows, timed texted files, localization conformance and file transfer mechanisms.  The right person for this role has working experience in all manner of media operations, scheduling, project management, encoding, transcoding, and asset validation.  They should have a good understanding and aptitude for automation, workflow design, file trafficking and the use of AI tools to help within video recognition. The candidate will need to work through many stages from experimentation through sustainment at scale.

Responsibilities:

• Perform the processing and management of media assets in a results-driven environment
• Traffic media in systems such as Google, Airtable or other internal tooling
• Media Prep for OTT, Streaming and necessary downstream destinations
• Make editorial updates to final files for compliance with network specs
• Perform audio loudness measurements to ensure correct specs
• Review and remediate timed text files for final distribution
• Receive and send media via Aspera or other cloud-based delivery mechanisms
• Help to troubleshoot issues with files and recommend fixes
• Perform metadata validation and entry including segment timings to create broadcast automation database records
• Collaborate with team members as part of a high functioning team that is able to effectively and efficiently execute assignments
• Assist manager in developing, maintaining and creating daily, weekly executive reporting

The Media Operator will need to understand and have knowledge and experience using the following types of software, hardware, media and workflows:

• Prior use of cloud-based asset management software such as Aspera On Cloud, MAMs and Data I/O
• Understanding of streaming specifications and workflow from curation to delivery
• Ability to transcode and encode video and audio files using tools such as Premiere Pro
• Solid understanding of digital file formats and creation of ProRes files and Proxy files
• Solid understanding of Timed Text files both English SDH and Foreign language subtitles
• Knowledge of HDR and SDR color workflows and using tools such as Colorfront Transkoder to interpret color space
• Experience in Data I/O, Media Curation and Trafficking
• Experience with short form clips, especially in horizontal and vertical formats
• Experience with validating assets through tools such as Media Info and Dolby Vision Metafier
• Experience with Harding software for PSE testing

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

Minimum and Preferred. Inclusive of Licenses/Certs (include functional experience as well as behavioral attributes and/or leadership capabilities)

Basic Qualifications

• Minimum 2 years experience in media asset preparation, operations or editorial work
• Prior use of cloud-based asset management software such as Aspera On Cloud, MAMs and Data I/O
• Understanding of streaming specifications and workflow from curation to delivery
• Ability to transcode and encode video and audio files using tools such as Premiere Pro
• Ability to handle exports of multiple videos simultaneously and track progress
• Solid understanding of digital file formats and creation of ProRes files and Proxy files
• Solid understanding of Timed Text files both English SDH and Foreign language subtitles

• Knowledge of HDR and SDR color workflows and using tools such as Colorfront Transkoder to interpret color space
• Experience in Data I/O, Media Curation and Trafficking
• Posses a strong audio engineering background with demonstrated experience in mixing, stem creation, and audio validation.

• Proficiency in immersive and surround formats such as Dolby Atmos and 5.1 is essential, along with expertise in audio normalization.
• Familiarity with industry-standard audio configurations is required.
• hands-on experience with the following software tools and suites: ProTools, Dolby Media Encoder, Nugen, FFMPEG

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in Data I/O, Media Curation and Trafficking
• Experience with short form clips, especially in horizontal and vertical formats.
• Experience with validating assets through tools such as Media Info and Dolby Vision Metafier
• Experience with Harding software for PSE testing

Experience with:

• Premiere
• Airtable
• Transkoder
• Ai video recognition software

Required Education  

• High School Diploma

The hiring range for this position in California is $72,000 to $96,500 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.