Product Software Engineer II

The Walt Disney Company; Bristol (CT); On-site; USD 115,000 - 154,000; Full time

Job summary

The Walt Disney Company – ESPN Watch Experiences team is seeking a backend engineer to build and support APIs powering ESPN’s watch experiences across platforms. You will contribute to high-traffic streaming, live events, and personalized experiences, ensuring reliability and performance.

Collaborate with product and frontend teams, participate in on-call rotations, code reviews, and design discussions while leveraging AWS, Java Spring Boot, and modern observability tools to deliver scalable,

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field or equivalent experience.
• 3+ years of backend systems or API development experience in Java (Spring Boot preferred).
• Familiarity with AWS cloud-native development (ECS, Lambda, CloudFront, S3).
• Hands-on experience with monitoring/observability stacks (DataDog, New Relic, CloudWatch).
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, Git, build systems (Jenkins/TeamCity) and containers.

Responsibilities

• Implement features and fix defects in backend services and APIs powering ESPN watch experiences.
• Develop, test, deploy, and maintain scalable backend systems handling high-traffic streaming.
• Analyze and troubleshoot distributed systems, high-throughput APIs, and cloud infrastructure.
• Participate in code reviews and apply engineering best practices, testing, and reliability standards.
• Collaborate with product, frontend, platform, and partner teams to design scalable solutions.

Skills

Java (Spring Boot)

AWS

DataDog

REST APIs

CI/CD

On-call

AI-assisted development

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related field

Tools

HAProxy

Varnish

CDN

Jenkins

TeamCity

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology

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.

Job Summary

As a member of the Watch Experience Delivery team, you will help build and support the backend services and APIs that power ESPN’s watch and streaming experiences across platforms including the ESPN app, ESPN.com, connected TV devices, and partner platforms. The team is responsible for delivering personalized and scalable watch experiences for millions of users, supporting live events, replays, highlights, multiview experiences, stream menus, and other critical streaming workflows.

In This Role, You Will

• Implement features and resolve defects within backend services and APIs supporting ESPN watch experiences


• Contribute to the development, testing, deployment, and maintenance of scalable backend systems delivering high-traffic streaming and content experiences


• Analyze and troubleshoot engineering problems involving distributed systems, high-throughput APIs, caching layers, and cloud-based infrastructure


• Participate in code reviews while applying engineering best practices, coding standards, testing strategies, and operational excellence principles


• Collaborate with product managers, frontend teams, platform teams, and partner engineering organizations to design and implement reliable and scalable solutions


• Support mission-critical live sports and streaming platforms with an emphasis on reliability, resiliency, observability, performance, and operational readiness


• Participate in team on-call rotations, live event support, and incident response activities


• Contribute to sprint planning, technical design discussions, estimation, and delivery execution


• Research and experiment with emerging technologies and AI-assisted engineering workflows to improve developer productivity and platform capabilities


• Grow your technical and professional skills through mentorship, feedback, and hands-on experience with modern distributed backend systems

Responsibilities And Duties Of The Role

• Be involved in the requirements gathering, analysis, design, development, testing, deployment, and maintenance of systems that support or enhance other applications within our environment.


• Collaborate and troubleshoot with the rest of the team in the analysis and resolution of complex engineering problems involving high-traffic web application services, distributed systems, caching layers, and APIs, including participation in on-call rotations and live event operational support.


• Think of new ways to help make our watch platform more scalable, resilient, performant, and reliable while partnering across teams to bring ideas into production. Research, learn, and apply new technologies and modern engineering practices.

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, Engineering, or related field - or equivalent experience


• 3+ years of experience developing backend systems or APIs in Java (Spring Boot preferred)


• Familiarity with cloud - native development, particularly in AWS (ECS, Lambda, CloudFront, S3, etc.)


• Hands‑on experience with monitoring and observability stacks (DataDog, New Relic, CloudWatch)


• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, Git, build systems (e.g., TeamCity, Jenkins), and containerized deployments


• Strong understanding of REST APIs, caching strategies, and performance optimization


• Comfortable working in high-stakes environments with live event traffic and tight SLAs


• Leverage agentic AI development tools such as Cursor and Claude Code to accelerate development workflows, including code generation, test creation, debugging, and operational automation across APIs and infrastructure


• Participate in regular on call rotation and major event coverage throughout the many sports seasons

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with frontend development using Angular or similar frameworks for internal tools


• Experience with HAProxy, Varnish, CDN configuration, and edge caching strategies


• Exposure to media/streaming workflows (e.g., content metadata, playback services, personalization APIs)


• Experience working on large-scale distributed systems in high-availability environments


• Comfortable in fast paced environments with agile ceremonies, triage sessions, and cross-team coordination


• Strong communication skills with a passion for collaborative problem solving


• Drive adoption of agentic AI-assisted development workflows, using tools like Cursor and Claude Code to improve developer velocity, code quality, and operational efficiency across the Watch Services platform

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.

The hiring range for this position in Bristol, CT is $114,900 - $154,100 per year, in Glendale, CA is $114,900 - $154,100 per year, in Seattle, WA is $120,300 - $161,300 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.