Senior Principal Software Engineer

Disneyland Hong Kong; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 234,000 - 315,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in the entertainment sector seeks a Senior Principal Software Engineer to oversee architecture and solution development across various services. This role involves designing scalable solutions and coordinating with engineering leaders to meet business needs. Candidates should have extensive experience in building and maintaining customer-facing applications, with a strong focus on leadership and communication skills.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in designing and maintaining services and APIs.
• 5+ years of experience working with product and business stakeholders.
• Extensive experience with distributed systems in production environments.

Responsibilities

• Oversee architecture and solution development across services and applications.
• Coordinate with engineering leaders to define effective requirements.
• Author detailed technical design documentation.

Skills

Leadership

Communication

Problem Solving

Collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field

Tools

Java

Python

JavaScript

Docker

Kubernetes

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.

The Product 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.

As a Senior Principal Software Engineer on the Solutions Architecture team, you will represent the Product Engineering group as an Architect.

This entails coordinating with engineering leaders across disciplines (client applications, identity, commerce, media, content orchestration, telemetry, core services) to define the most effective solutions to business needs and engineering challenges. You will be designing, developing, and disseminating technical strategy across disciplines. This role is overseeing and influencing product solutions, with a distinct focus on backend solutions, across Disney Entertainment and ESPN Technology brands such as Disney+ and Hulu. This includes championing technical initiatives with an eye towards unifying client and service teams on scalable solutions that power resilient customer experiences.

The role requires an inherent desire to quickly deep dive on engineering and business use cases with the ability to provide multiple solutions, weighing both the value created and effort required by the decisions you will make. This includes authoring detailed technical documentation, actively participating in technical proposals with peers, and coaching/mentoring other principal developers and architects throughout the company.

Responsibilities:

• Oversee architecture and solution development across services and applications. Champion scalable solutions that power resilient customer experiences.
• Coordinate with engineering leaders across all disciplines to define effective requirements and technical solutions.
• Author detailed technical design documentation.
• Set and steer architectural goals across the Product Engineering organization. Coach and mentor other principal developers and architects to meet those goals.
• Rapidly address production issues and clearly articulate root cause analyses.

Basic Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience designing, building, and maintaining services and APIs that support globally scaled customer-facing applications.
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field, or equivalent training or work experience.
• 5+ years of experience working across disciplines such as product, program, and business stakeholders to refine plans and strategy.
• Extensive experience delivering and maintaining distributed systems in production environments.
• Proven experience with complex caching and streaming data systems.
• Strong leadership, facilitation, and presentation skills, with the ability to influence business and technology leadership without authority.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Well-organized, capable of delivering through ambiguity, working independently and collaboratively, and managing multiple priorities.
• Proactively share knowledge and conceptualize innovative ideas.

Preferred Qualifications

• Authority in the streaming industry, with extensive expertise in global streaming platform architecture and management.
• Experience with Java or Python and JavaScript.
• Experience with documentation tools such as Smithy, OpenAPI, Plantuml, Lucidchart.
• Exposure to Datastore technologies: S3, Redis, DDB, Elastic Search, Databricks.
• Experience with event messaging and data pipelines: SQS, Kinesis, Kafka, Flink, Spark.
• Background with network protocols and tools: Load balancers, Envoy/Istio, WebSockets, CDNs, Charles, Fiddler.
• Experience with CI/CD, Containerization, and IaC tools: Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Spinnaker.
• Familiarity with common cloud infrastructure environments and solutions.

The hiring range for this position in Seattle, WA is $234,400 to $314,300 per year. The actual offer will consider internal equity, geographic region, skills, experience, and other factors. Compensation may include bonuses and long-term incentives, along with comprehensive benefits.

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. For accommodations, visit the Disney candidate disability accommodations FAQs. We will respond only to requests related to accessibility of the online application system due to a disability.