Software Engineer II

Job Summary:

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.

Product Engineering is a unified team responsible for the engineering of Disney Entertainment & ESPN digital and streaming products and platforms. This includes product engineering, media engineering, quality assurance, engineering behind personalization, commerce, lifecycle, and identity.

Our Technology Enablement Engineering teams design, build, and operate cloud-based platforms that power applications across Disney Entertainment & ESPN Product & Technology (DEEP&T). We partner closely with product and engineering teams to create and improve system stability, scalability, and operational excellence through automation, observability, and engineering best practices.

The Software Engineer II plays a key role in planning, designing, and implementing software and infrastructure solutions that support highly available and resilient systems. This engineer works on cloud-native platforms, distributed systems, and automation tooling that improves operational efficiency, and developer productivity.

In this role, the engineer will collaborate across engineering teams to develop scalable systems, enhance platform capabilities, and drive improvements in system performance, reliability, and deployment workflows. You will:

• Develop and deliver solutions for problems of moderate scope and complexity, ensuring reliable deployment to production environments.
• Communicate status, progress, risks, and blockers clearly with team members and stakeholders while maintaining visibility into upcoming work.
• Troubleshoot software defects, improve existing systems, and contribute new functionality using clean, maintainable, and well-tested code.
• Evaluate existing systems, standards, and engineering practices to identify opportunities for improvements in reliability, scalability, and operational efficiency.
• Collaborate with software engineers, platform teams, and technical leaders to design and implement solutions for moderately complex technical challenges.
• Identify opportunities to improve engineering productivity and operational efficiency through automation, tooling, and responsible use of AI-assisted development technologies.

Responsibilities:

• Write code that impacts business goals, within guidelines and policies.
• Review code for design, logic, testability, usability, and adherence to standards.
• Strive for operational excellence and continuous improvement.
• Develop specifications for assigned components, projects, or fixes, and breaks down projects into prioritized tasks.
• Build solutions that scale and perform in the cloud.
• Participate in project proposal, architecture, and design. Implement assigned projects and tasks efficiently and comprehensively.
• Participate in planning for short, medium, and long term goals.
• Oversee technical maintenance. Perform troubleshooting for systems that tend to be large and complex.
• Design, development, documentation, and testing.
• Apply experience to resolve a variety of issues across a variety of technologies such as software, IaC, networking, code delivery, cloud-native services, security, and others.
• Identify problems and opportunities and recommend solutions.
• Serve as a technical resource for less experienced software engineers.

Basic Qualifications:

• Minimum of 3 years of related work experience within the software infrastructure engineering field
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience
• Well-versed in Software Engineering and Infrastructure Engineering principles, patterns, and best practices.
• Ability to understand the business domain from both a technical and product viewpoint
• Minimum of 2 years experience working with AWS Cloud Infrastructure and Resources
• Proficient in Python and/or other comparable programming language
• Well-versed with modern infrastructure services and concepts such as containerization (e.g. Docker), distributed systems, Infrastructure-as-Code (e.g. Terraform, CloudFormation), and microservices.
• Exposure to working with globally distributed teams
• Experience working within an Agile environment

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience using modern AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Copilot, Cursor, or similar) to improve code quality, accelerate development, and enhance documentation.
• Understanding of foundational AI/ML concepts, familiarity with cloud-native AI services such as model hosting, and/or ability to use AI tools to automate cloud operations tasks.

#DISNEYTECH

The hiring range for this position in New York, NY is $123,000 to $165,000 and in Los Angeles, CA is $117,500 to $157,500 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.