Media Performance Engineer II, Distribution

Job ID 10106008 Location San Francisco, California, United States Business Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology Date posted Nov. 13, 2024

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Job Summary:

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 our 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 enhance 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.

A few reasons why we think you’d love working here:

Building the future of Disney’s media: DE&E Technologists are designing and building the infrastructure that will power our 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 implement groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms and enhance how audiences experience sports, entertainment & news.

Media Engineering builds the software and systems that prepare media content and metadata for the Disney Streaming platform - providing the best possible playback experience to our viewers. Media Engineering handles audio, video, & metadata content from ingest through publish - for normalization, processing, and packaging - supporting operator tools and automation for a scalable workflow. We build and coordinate logic across players and back-end services to measure, control, and optimize playback across our stack.

The Media Experience, Performance Engineering - Distribution Team is nested at the intersection of technology and innovation within Disney Entertainment and ESPN Technology (DE&ET). We are leading the charge in optimizing playback performance quality and shaping the future of media technology. The role on the Distribution team demands strategic planning, precise time management, seamless collaboration with diverse engineering teams, and hands-on leadership. Routine functions encompass analyzing product health, swiftly mitigating escalations, remediation attempts, meticulously curating documentation, engineering and enforcing media and CDN distribution policies while providing crucial support for live events and feature releases. In essence, the Performance Engineering teams strive to engineer seamless playback experiences and drive optimal performance across TWDC’s streaming services, leveraging state-of-the-art technology, multidisciplinary skills, and innovative problem-solving approaches to directly enhance customer experience.

Responsibilities

In the role of Media Experience Performance Engineer II on the Distribution team, your daily responsibilities will require a combination of strategic planning, time management around internal initiatives, an ability to collaborate with development, operations and engineering teams, a hands-on approach to leadership and mentoring within the larger Media Experience organization, while utilizing cross-functional skills to ensure optimal performance across the Media Experience Distribution team and Disney owned and operated streaming services.

This position offers an opportunity for personal and professional growth, providing exposure to cutting-edge technology within the realm of streaming services.

Analyze health of streaming products utilizing internal and third-party tooling
Act as first responder to both internal and external delivery escalations
Execute mitigation steps to limit windows of impact
Curate documentation for issue tracking and impact analysis
Manage distribution policies using internal tooling
Support live events, high-profile content sunrises and feature releases

Basic Qualifications

3+ years of experience in streaming media, content distribution, or video technology.
3+ years of hands-on experience with Live Video Streaming Systems, including encoding, distribution, and playback.
Understanding of the live and VOD content delivery life cycle – “glass to glass”.
Experience in a production environment, preferably in a high-availability, large-scale setup on AWS or another public cloud.
Good communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work in a team.
Basic quantitative, analytical, problem-solving, debugging, and decision-making skills.
Exposure to interfacing with OTT and mobile devices (Roku, Game Consoles, Apple TV, Android, iOS, etc.).
Awareness of network-level tools; ThousandEyes, Kentik, Catchpoint.
Familiarity with data visualization tools; Grafana, Datadog, Kibana, Splunk.
Basic understanding of CDNs and their relation to network operations, transit, and peering.
Exposure to designing and maintaining documentation.
Familiarity with ticketing and tracking systems like JIRA and Confluence.
Exposure to working with third-party services and device manufacturers.
Basic understanding of technical project management.
Ability to contribute to independent research.
Analytical mindset.
Basic proficiency in data structures (SQL).
Demonstrated ability to deliver results through ambiguity.
Basic knowledge of video streaming quality metrics and technical aspects affecting the viewer experience.
Ability to assist in identifying and resolving performance issues to optimize end-user experience.
Exposure to tooling used to analyze subscriber data, trends, and performance metrics.

Preferred Qualifications

Exposure to Live and VOD Video Streaming Systems, with basic understanding of encoding, distribution and playback through previous work experience.

#DISNEYTECH

The hiring range for this position in San Francisco, California is $86,300 to $115,700 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.

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 Candidate.Accommodations@Disney.com 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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