Lead Software Engineer - Back End

The Walt Disney Company; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 159,000 - 214,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in family entertainment seeks a Lead Software Engineer to drive backend development for their media platforms. The role demands collaboration, innovation, and technical excellence, requiring 7+ years of experience, a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, and proficiency in backend services and JVM technologies.

Benefits

Health insurance

Retirement plans

Paid time off

Flexible hours

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience crafting and operating backend services.
• Experience crafting and operating large-scale, high-availability backend services.
• Strong grasp of computer science fundamentals and design patterns.

Responsibilities

• Design new solutions and drive alignment across engineering and product teams.
• Write code to implement new features or optimize existing services.
• Perform code reviews for members of the team.

Skills

Backend services

Caching technologies

JVM services

Agile/Scrum practices

Cloud infrastructure

Observability tools

Collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science

Tools

Git

Jenkins

Datadog

Grafana

Job description

Lead Software Engineer - Back End

Apply Now Apply Later Job ID 10121493 Location Seattle, Washington, United States Business Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology Date posted5月. 22, 2025

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.

The User State and Familiar Personalization team builds critical familiar features for both Hulu and Disney Plus.We process user’s interactions with content and delivery a familiarized experience based off those interactions. 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.

***This is a on-site position, 4 days a week and must sit in one of our technology locations listed above***

As a Lead Software Engineer, you will collaborate closely with engineers, project managers, and product managers to find the best solution for our viewers. You will drive projects end-to-end: designing the initial solution; finding alignment with partner teams; execution of the necessary code; and overseeing the deployment of code to production. Members of the team look to your code and documentation as examples of excellence. You value good-faith collaboration, driving best practices, and promoting excellence on your team. If this sounds like you, we would love to hear from you!

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

• Actively participate in daily stand-ups and other scrum ceremonies.
• Design new solutions and drive alignment across engineering and product teams.
• Expertly break down work at the epic level, setting project milestones with reasonable deadlines.
• Prioritize work within a project to deliver on the most necessary or urgent requirements.
• Anticipate and mitigate risk on projects.
• Effectively communicate with stakeholders on project progress.
• Write code to implement new features or optimize existing services.
• Determine the most efficient means to sufficiently test new code: unit tests, integration tests, performance tests, etc.
• Set best practices for the team for on-call responsibilities such as deployments, monitoring, and investigating incidents
• Use logs, monitoring tools, and work with developers to determine root causes across distributed components.
• Perform code reviews for members of the team, bearing a sense of responsibility for approved code.
• Coach and mentor teammates in an open, respectful, flexible, empathetic manner. Help onboard new team members.

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience
• 7+ years of related experience crafting and operating backend services.
• 1+ years of related experience crafting and operating large-scale, high-availability backend services.
• Experience crafting and operating JVM services (such as Java, Scala, Kotlin).
• Proven track record of designing and driving consensus on backend architectures.
• Deep understanding of and experience using caching technologies (such as Redis, Memcached, EHcache).
• Strong grasp of computer science fundamentals (data structures, algorithms, databases, etc).
• Strong understanding of design patterns and principles.
• Experience with asynchronous programming.
• Experience with object-oriented programming patterns.
• Experience with functional programming patterns.
• Experience using source control systems and CI/CD pipelines (such as git, Github, Jenkins).
• Experience with AGILE/Scrum practices.
• Skilled at work breakdown and task estimation.
• 1+ years practicing operational best practices for service maintenance.
• Experience deploying and scaling within a cloud infrastructure.
• Experience with observability tools for metrics, logging, and monitoring (such as Datadog, Grafana).
• Strong communication skills and a desire to share your knowledge with team members and others across Disney Streaming.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience collaborating to drive organizational change.

The hiring range for this position in New York, NY is per year $159,500 - $213,900 per year, Seattle, WA is $159,500 - $213,900 per year, Bristol, CT is $152,200 - $204,100 per year, and Glendale, CA is $152,200 - $204,100 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.

About Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology:

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.

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 [e-mail] 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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