Principal Product Software Engineer - Java

The Walt Disney Company; Glendale (CA); On-site; USD 184,000 - 247,000; Full time

Job summary

The Walt Disney Company is seeking a Principal Product Software Engineer to shape technical direction for high-scale content platforms across Disney’s brands and products. This role blends hands-on coding with architecture leadership, influencing multiple teams and driving coherent designs that scale globally.

You will lead complex projects, write critical-path code, mentor engineers, and champion modern engineering practices, including AI-assisted tooling, to deliver robust, scalable systems

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience building large-scale distributed services.
• Expert-level programming skills in Java or a similar OO language.
• Proven track record designing backend architectures spanning multiple teams.
• Experience building and operating message-based, distributed systems with caching.
• Experience mentoring engineers and setting technical direction beyond a single team.

Responsibilities

• Lead design, implementation, and delivery of software in highly complex problem spaces; write critical-path code.
• Deconstruct large architectures into independently developable components for multiple teams.
• Develop relationships with stakeholders to inform technical strategy.
• Set engineering standards and drive AI-assisted tooling adoption across the organization.
• Lead design reviews, mentor engineers, and foster collaboration and quality.
• Support hiring and promotion assessments to support career growth.

Skills

Distributed systems

Backend design

Mentoring engineers

Technical strategy

Code reviews

AI-assisted tooling

Tools

AWS

Terraform

OpenSearch

DynamoDB

SQS

SNS

CI/CD tooling

Job description

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.

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.

The Product & Data Engineering team is responsible for end-to-end development for Disney’s world-class consumer-facing products, including streaming platforms Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, and digital products & experiences across ESPN, Marvel, Disney Studios, NatGeo, and ABC News. The team drives innovation at scale for millions of consumers around the world across Apple, Android, Smart TVs, game consoles, and the web, with our platforms powering core experiences like personalization, search, messaging and data.

The ABC Core Content Technologies engineering team is looking for a Principal Product Software Engineer who is passionate about setting technical direction for high-scale content platforms and multiplying the impact of engineers across the organization.

As a Principal Engineer, you are a trusted member of the technical leadership of the organization. You build and set the architectural direction for the systems that provide dynamic content management for many of Disney Entertainment’s brands – including ABC Entertainment, ABC News, ABC OTV, Disney, Marvel, National Geographic, and Studios – as well as content ingestion from many internal and 3rd party sources, publishing pipelines, and complex image services. You operate in highly ambiguous and significantly complex problem spaces that have long-term impact on our brands, products, technology, and architecture.

You are recognized as an expert across multiple specialties. You influence business and technology direction, bringing industry context to technical decisions, and setting the standard for engineering excellence across the organization. As a hands-on technical leader, you split your time between coding, design, and architecture based on where your skills will have the greatest impact – personally writing critical-path code, deconstructing architectures so multiple teams can execute independently, and aligning those teams toward simple, coherent designs.

On a Daily Basis You Should Bring

• A track record of driving clarity and simplicity in the face of significant ambiguity and complexity.
• A force-multiplier mindset – amplifying the impact of teams across the organization through design reviews, mentorship, and technical strategy.
• Deep ownership of the products and platforms your organization delivers.
• A pragmatic approach to balancing trade-offs between opportunity and architectural complexity.
• A passion for keeping abreast of industry trends and benchmarking our technology against the best in the industry.
• Kindness, pragmatic optimism, and your unique view and experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, implementation, and delivery of software in highly ambiguous and significantly complex problem spaces that have long-term impact on our products, technology, and architecture. Heavily influence the design and personally write a significant portion of critical-path code, making the right trade-offs between opportunity and architectural complexity.
• Deconstruct large architectures into components that can be developed independently by multiple teams, then align those teams toward simple, coherent designs that come together into an integrated whole. Lead strategically important projects that span multiple teams.
• Acquire a deep understanding of our business processes, dependent systems, and teams, and develop professional relationships with key stakeholders — including business users, product managers, designers, and other Principal Engineers both inside and outside of our organization — to inform technical strategy and drive alignment.
• Set the standard for engineering excellence across the organization – producing designs, algorithms, and implementations that are exemplary in terms of robustness, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and simplicity – and drive best practices across the organization, including driving the adoption of AI-assisted engineering tooling and demonstrating a strong commitment to the productivity and quality gains these tools and models deliver.
• Amplify your impact as a force multiplier: lead design reviews for complex projects, probe assumptions, illuminate pitfalls, foster shared understanding, handle escalations, and mitigate complexity risks. Bring business and industry context to technology decisions and influence business and technology direction.
• Actively develop and mentor engineers across and beyond your organization, keep the engineering community current on trends and technologies, participate in hiring, and perform promotion assessments to support the career growth of others.

Additional Expectations

• Promote and reinforce engineering best practices — design patterns, code review, and automated testing — and drive their adoption across the organization
• Mentor engineers within and beyond your squad, and educate the broader engineering community on advanced technical issues, technologies, and trends
• Lead and reinforce a high level of operational excellence for the systems underpinning applications used by millions of fans every day
• Solicit differing views, build consensus, and be willing to change your mind as you learn more
• Participate in hiring and interviewing, and perform promotion assessments to support the career growth of others
• Champion the adoption of AI-assisted development tools, models, and workflows, demonstrating a personal commitment to them and helping the broader team realize measurable productivity and quality gains

Minimum Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience building large-scale, highly available distributed services.
• Expert-level programming skills in Java or a similar object-oriented language, with strong computer science fundamentals (data structures, algorithms, databases, etc.).
• Proven track record designing backend architectures that span multiple teams and driving consensus on them.
• Experience building and operating message-based, distributed systems, including caching strategies.
• Experience mentoring engineers and setting technical direction beyond a single team.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working on highly scalable, real-time content or data platforms serving millions of consumers.
• Extensive experience with Amazon Web Services (AWS) or a similar cloud service, including Terraform and infrastructure as code (IaC) practices.
• Experience with event-driven messaging architectures (e.g., SQS, SNS) and both relational and non-relational database technologies (e.g., DynamoDB, OpenSearch).
• Contributions to intellectual property (e.g., patents), industry conferences, or a broader technical community.

The hiring range for this position in California is $184,300 to $247,100 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.