Lead Software Engineer

The Walt Disney Company; Bay Lake (FL); On-site; USD 148,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

The Walt Disney Company’s Disney Experiences (DXT) Technology & Digital team in Orlando seeks a Lead Software Engineer to own multi-system outcomes and set technical direction.

You will design, build, and operate real-time, event-driven systems ingesting data from edge devices, develop backend services in Java, and architect scalable AWS-based platforms. Occasional travel of 10–15% is expected.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience in distributed, production systems.
• 3+ years of cross-team technical leadership with end-to-end ownership.
• Experience with real-time streaming data pipelines and event-driven architectures.
• Expert level Java and strong AWS experience.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate real-time, event-driven systems that ingest data from edge devices.
• Develop backend services and streaming pipelines using Java and streaming tools.
• Architect and operate production systems on AWS with a focus on scalability and observability.
• Lead end-to-end delivery for multiple systems across teams.

Skills

Java

AWS

Real-time data streaming

Distributed systems

Leadership

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Kafka

Kinesis

MQTT

ECS/EKS

DynamoDB

S3

CloudWatch

Job description

This is not a remote role. You must be in the area or willing to relocate.

Job Description

About the Role & Team

Disney Experiences (DXT) Technology & Digital creates world-class immersive digital experiences for the Company’s premier vacation brands including Disney’s Parks & Resorts worldwide, Disney Cruise Line, Aulani: A Disney Resort & Spa, and Disney Vacation Club. We are responsible for the end-to-end digital and physical Guest experience for all technology & digital-led initiatives across the Attractions & Entertainment, Food & Beverage, Resorts & Transportation and Merchandise lines of business as well as other initiatives including My Disney Experience and Hey Disney!

The Lead Software Engineer will have responsibilities within the Disney Experiences (DXT) team that manages technical delivery for products within the Connected Products team across all DX. As Lead, they own multi-system outcomes, set technical direction, arbitrate tradeoffs across teams, and drive delivery when priorities conflict. The Lead Software Engineer will be contributing to a core platform with real-world impact, operating at scale, and solving technically hard problems that span edge systems, cloud infrastructure, and real-time data processing. This is a hands‑on lead role: you will be expected to write production code, drive architecture, lead delivery across teams, and own operational outcomes for critical platform components. Success in this role requires ownership of roadmap-to-delivery for a portfolio, aligning multiple teams, unblocking org-level issues and raising the bar on architecture and operational standards.

Job

• Design, build, and operate real-time, event-driven systems that ingest and process data from edge devices
• Develop backend services and streaming pipelines using Java and Apache Flink to transform data into reliable, consumable events, managing Guest media and identity reconsiliation
• Architect and operate production systems on AWS, with a strong focus on scalability, cost efficiency, observability, and fault tolerance
• Lead end‑to‑end delivery for multiple systems, balancing domain goals, technical constraints, and priorities to deliver impactful features
• Lead technical decisions, drive system design, and act as an owner for critical components of the platform
• Build clean, versioned event schemas and APIs that integrate with downstream consumers and external systems
• Independently act as technical liaison and team representative with high autonomy
• Comfortable mentoring junior developers and presenting to executive audiences
• Engage in the estimation and planning of sophisticated scalable projects
• This position may require occasional travel, estimated at 10–15%

Basic Qualifications

• Must have 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with experience in distributed, production systems
• Must have 3+ years of repeated cross-team technical leadership, end-to-end ownership of multi-service initiatives, and driving architecture decisions that others implement at scale
• Leads through technical influence, not direct people management.
• Must have expertise building real-time or streaming data pipelines (event ingestion, aggregation, windowing, and emission) with technologies like AWS IoT Core, Kinesis, Kafka, and MQTT.
• Must have expert‑level proficiency in Java
• Must have deep hands‑on experience with AWS (e.g., ECS/EKS, Lambda, DynamoDB, S3, CloudWatch, Timestream/InfluxDB)
• Must have strong understanding of event‑driven architecture, schema evolution, and downstream consumer integration
• Proven ability to design and deliver systems that are observable, resilient, and scalable
• You will be expected to stay up to date with emerging technologies so you can make informed recommendations

Strongly Preferred Qualifications

• Experience integrating IoT, edge, or computer-vision‑adjacent systems into cloud platforms
• Operating high‑visibility systems with strict performance and reliability expectations
• Experience with stream processing frameworks or high-throughput messaging systems
• Building systems that handle sensitive or privacy-relevant data, with strong security and access controls

Required Education

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field or years of equivalent relevant experience

#DISNEYTECH

The hiring range for this position in Orlando is $148,300.00 - $180,000.00 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.