Lead Product Software Engineer (DevOps)

The Walt Disney Company; Glendale (CA); Hybrid; USD 156,000 - 209,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus program

Long-term incentives

Hybrid work in Glendale

Job summary

The Walt Disney Company in Glendale, CA is seeking an experienced software architect to lead web infrastructure across Disney’s consumer brands.

You will define a long‑term technical strategy, drive reliability and standards, mentor engineers, and oversee cloud services using Route53, CloudFront, Varnish, and AWS.

This growth role offers an Architect path and a compensation range of $155,700 to $208,700 per year, plus a bonus and long‑term incentives, with hybrid work flexibility in Glendale.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of software engineering or architect experience.
• Deep Web architecture knowledge including HTTP, DNS, caching, REST/GraphQL.
• Hands-on AWS cloud experience with high-volume services.
• Proven leadership across multiple teams and ability to communicate tradeoffs.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute a long-term technical strategy across brand sites, focusing on reliability and observability.
• Drive adoption of paved-paths architecture patterns and engineering standards.
• Provide mentorship and design reviews for senior engineers; collaborate with engineering leads.
• Ensure system integrity, performance, and scalability of cloud-based services.
• Influence technical planning and risk management for critical site projects.

Skills

Web architecture

HTTP protocols

Caching strategies

AWS experience

Leadership ability

Design reviews

Mentoring engineers

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science

Tools

Route53

CloudFront

Varnish

WAF

Job 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 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.

Role Overview

This role is designed to align with the Engineering strategy of standardizing web delivery architectures across the consumer-facing brands' infrastructure layer. By reducing complexity and aligning web stacks across the N&E Alliance, this role enables feature teams to focus on delivering strategic business goals and OKR-driven initiatives. This is a growth role, and we will look to hire someone whom we can mentor into an Architect role. This role will serve as an expert in Web infrastructure components, like DNS, Route53, WAF, reverse caching tools like Varnish and CloudFront, ensuring that engineering efforts drive velocity and innovation. Risk of not filling this role will be tied to failing behind on P&T-level OKRs for reliability.

Job Responsibilities

• Technical Strategy & Planning: Define and execute a long-term technical strategy across all brand sites, with a specific focus on Reliability, Observability, and delivering high quality on business priorities.
• Architecture & Standards: Research, evangelize, and drive the adoption of paved-paths architecture patterns and widespread engineering standards.
• Collaboration & Mentorship: Provide high-level technical guidance and mentoring to senior engineers, conducting effective design reviews and solving advanced technical issues. Collaborate with P5-level Engineering Leads on standardization of the stack.
• System Integrity: Take accountability for fundamental platform performance, scalability, and resiliency of mission-critical cloud-based services.
• Compliance & Risk Management: Influence department-wide technical planning, including managing technical risks for critical site projects.

Basic Qualifications

• Industry Experience: 7+ years of relevant experience as a software engineer or architect.
• Deep Web Expertise: Strong command of web architecture principles, including HTTP, DNS, caching, and API delivery paradigms such as REST and GraphQL.
• Expert Cloud Proficiency: Hands‑on experience developing and maintaining high-volume distributed services on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
• Leadership Track Record: Proven ability to drive technical decisions across multiple teams and communicate complex technical tradeoffs to non‑technical stakeholders.

Required Education

Bachelorʼs degree in Computer Science or a related technical discipline.

#techAtDisney

The hiring range for this position in Glendale, CA is $155,700 to $208,700 per year and in Seattle, WA is $163,100 to $218,700 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.