Principal Software Engineer, Personalization & Recommendations

Job ID 10110222 Location New York, New York, United States / San Francisco, California, United States / Seattle, Washington, United States / Los Angeles, California, United States / Glendale, California, United States Business Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology Date posted Jan. 24, 2025

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Job Summary:

Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology

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.

Building the future of Disney’s media business: DE&E Technologists are designing and building the infrastructure that will power Disney’s media, advertising, and distribution businesses for years to come.
Reach & Scale: The products and platforms this group builds and operates delight millions of consumers every minute of every day – from Disney+ and Hulu to ABC News and Entertainment, to ESPN and ESPN+, and much more.
Innovation: We develop and execute groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms and enhance how audiences experience sports, entertainment & news.

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.

Job Summary:

This Principal Software Engineer, Personalization and Recommendations is a position within the Engagement Experiences & Platforms team of The Walt Disney Company’s Entertainment and ESPN Technology group.

This role reports to Data Team Lead, Personalization and Recommendations.

This is a hands-on engineering position developing recommendation systems for personalized, data-driven experiences. In this role, you will work with a cross-functional team to conceptualize and develop world-class Disney apps. Based on your experience, you will apply technical expertise to manage individual project priorities, deadlines and deliverables and will design, develop, test, deploy, maintain, and enhance software solutions.

If hired, you will play a meaningful role in the evolving experiences across consumer facing digital products, with responsibilities for the technical design and implementation of large size projects and features.

We are looking for you if you are

Highly adaptable and committed to learning
Have a track record of delivering solutions utilizing Python
Thrive in an agile and collaborative environment.

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

Build data pipelines required for optimal extraction, transformation, and loading of data from a wide variety of data sources
Explore and experiment with the latest visualization libraries and technologies and choose the right tools to support our data visualization use cases
Work with stakeholders including the Executive, Product, Data and Design teams to assist with data-related technical issues and support their data infrastructure needs.
Design, develop, test, deploy, maintain and improve software
Participate in the design and implementation of core Platforms and Content Distribution systems
Collaborate with internal & external teams to define requirements and delivery schedules for projects

Design and deliver high quality code for small to medium size projects and make critical contributions working with others on larger projects
Work with the team to iteratively improve development practices and processes
Build strong relationships with the team while collectively finding opportunities for improvements around quality and automation

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

BS, BA, or advanced degree in computer science, engineering or its equivalent
10+ years hands-on professional experience with back-end systems design and development
Robust programming skills and strong experience with Python
Experience with the following technologies is a plus: AWS, Python Asyncio, FastAPI, Kafka, Airflow, Snowflake, Postgresql, serverless computing
Experience with working on ML based products and designing data pipelines is a plus
Comprehensive understanding of HTTP/S, APIs, and web services
Exposure to full lifecycle of application development, including practices like continuous integration, unit testing, code reviews, documentation, etc.
Ability to collaborate in a small, productive development team as well as the larger engineering organization
Motivated self-starter with the ability to learn and adapt to new technologies
Excellent verbal and written communication skills; can effectively articulate complex ideas and influence others through well-reasoned explanations
Write efficient, reliable, and maintainable code whether implementing architectural improvements, user-facing features, or fixing defects
Troubleshoot and resolve issues, problems, and errors encountered across our various platforms
Analyze and optimize application code for efficiency, reliability, and performance
Understand product architecture, assisting other Software Architects as necessary
Manage multiple competing priorities in a fast-paced, deadline-oriented environment
Embrace a highly collaborative team that rewards quality code and effective communication
Interest in industry trends on new technologies, best practices and solutions. A passion for innovation and raising the bar in all development aspects.

The hiring range for this position in New York, NY & Seattle, WA is $193,100 - $258,900 per year, in San Francisco, CA $201,900 - $270,700 and in Los Angeles, CA is $184,300 - $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.

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About Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology:

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Technology (DE&E Technology) provides the technological backbone and product development for Disney’s two media business units, while helping to keep the company at the vanguard of innovation – enabling the Company to continuously leverage technology to enhance storytelling and creativity, while delivering scalability, flexibility, and efficiency for its businesses.

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 & ESPN 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.

We will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with applicable law.

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, visit the Disney candidate disability accommodations FAQs. 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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