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Principal Software Engineer

Job ID 10094561 Location Santa Monica, California, United States / San Francisco, California, United States Business Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology Date posted Sep. 30, 2024
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Job Summary:

Department/Group Overview:

Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology

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.

A few reasons why we think you’d love working for Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology

  • Building the future of Disney’s media business: DE&E Technologists are designing and building the infrastructure that will power Disney’s media, advertising, and distribution businesses for years to come.
  • Reach & Scale: The products and platforms this group builds and operates delight millions of consumers every minute of every day – from Disney+ and Hulu, to ABC News and Entertainment, to ESPN and ESPN+, and much more.
  • Innovation: We develop and execute groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms and enhance how audiences experience sports, entertainment & news.

User Foundations

The User Foundations team builds critical User Capabilities that are shared across all experiences on the streaming services: Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ and Star+. We implement reliable, high-throughput services and pipelines for gathering information about our users,and delivering personalized experiences. We're a fast-paced, dynamic, collaborative and fun team, and are looking for someone who can slot right in and start delivering from day 1.

Job Summary:

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer who is passionate about developing high performance platforms.

To be successful in this role, you need effective communication and collaboration skills, a passion for learning and trying new things, and a strong foundational understanding of programming and computer science.

As a member of our team, you will apply your knowledge and skills to help us deliver scalable, performant, maintainable, and testable software.

On a daily basis you should bring:

  • A willingness and desire to effectively communicate and collaborate across teams and systems.
  • A sense of ownership of the projects delivered by your team and department
  • A passion for mentoring, learning, and adapting to a very dynamic and fast paced environment
  • An understanding of how to define technical and operational metrics to measure system health and to manage risk.
  • A keen eye for potential optimizations and enhancements to our services
  • Kindness and pragmatic optimism.
  • Your unique view and experience

What to bring

  • 10+ years of related experience crafting large-scale, highly available Java 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.)
  • 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 Hulu and industry best practices for data persistence and real-time streaming applications.

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

  • Develop software designs and specifications
  • Develops and writes code to meet design specifications
  • Test, document and deploy code
  • Provide technical mentorship, and code quality assurance
  • Support, maintain and break-fix production products
  • Work with a team to design solutions to various interesting and challenging problems
  • Be a champion for engineering excellence
  • Become and stay an expert in current and emerging technologies and tools

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

Basic Qualifications

  • 10+ years of software engineering experience
  • Understanding of message based distributed, scalable, and resilient systems
  • Desire to work in a start-up, fast-growth, or rapid-change environment
  • Experience working on diverse teams
  • Problem-solving skills to identify the root cause and implement the fix.
  • Solid communication skills – written, and oral
  • Ability to be flexible, adapting to changing priorities
  • Fluent in multiple programming languages and an expert in at least one of: JavaScript, Python, Java
  • Experience transforming requirements into software design, documentation and software.
  • Ability to coach teammates to become better engineers
  • Ability to lead technical projects

Experience with:

  • SpringBoot and related Spring projects
  • Non-relational database technologies e.g. DynamoDB
  • Redis and/or MemCache
  • Apache Kafka and/or Kinesis
  • Terraform, Docker and Kubernetes
  • Expert with at least one of: AWS, Azure, GCP
  • Experience building, testing, and tuning distributed systems

Required Education  

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience
  • 10+ years experience


The hiring range for this position in Santa Monica, CA is $180700- $242300, and for San Francisco is $217, 900 -$292, 200K. 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 & ESPN Technology:

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Technology (DE&E Technology) provides the technological backbone and product development for Disney’s two media business units, while helping to keep the company at the vanguard of innovation – enabling the Company to continuously leverage technology to enhance storytelling and creativity, while delivering scalability, flexibility, and efficiency for its businesses.

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 Hulu, LLC, which is part of a business we call Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology.

Hulu, 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, email Candidate.Accommodations@Disney.com with your request. This email address is not for general employment inquiries or correspondence. 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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