Lead Software Engineer, Ad Platforms
The Walt Disney Company
Job Posting Title:
Lead Software Engineer, Ad PlatformsReq ID:
10123895Job Description:
About Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology (DEEP&T)
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.
Ad Platforms is responsible for Disney’s industry-leading ad technology and products – driving advertising performance, innovation, and value in Disney’s sports, news, and entertainment content, across all media platforms.
The Ad Serving Engineering organization within Disney Entertainment and ESPN organization is fully responsible for building, enhancing and maintaining the high-performance, distributed, microservice-based Digital Advertising Platform. The platform is charged with the qualification, delivery, and tracking of Digital Advertising campaigns (Video on Demand, Live TV, and innovative interactive ads) across all of Disney online properties, including Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+.
In addition, Ad Serving teams collaborate in the development of supporting components, such as anti-ad fatigue systems, impression counting pipelines, and ad experience flows. We also work on integrations with critical services responsible for the entitlements, correct pacing, targeting, selection of ads, and third-party systems. As a Senior Software Engineer of our team, you will apply your knowledge and skills to help us deliver scalable, performant, maintainable, and testable software.
What You'll Do
On a daily basis you should bring:
A willingness and desire to effectively communicate and collaborate across teams and systems.
An understanding of the importance of project ownership
A passion for mentoring, learning, and adapting to a very dynamic and fast paced environment
An understanding of micro-service encapsulation and loose coupling, and why they are important
An understanding of how to define technical and operational metrics to measure system health and to manage risk.
Responsibilities
Lead by example and always strive to improve code and design for more scalable, cleaner, and decoupled implementations
Writing and reviewing a lot of code and tests
Understanding and use of automated tools (AI) while adhering to company policy
Available for a weekly-rotating On-Call support schedule
Reading requirements documentation from Product and translating into implementation tickets
Reviewing, learning, and documenting software and system designs in a high throughput, low latency microservices environment
Enhancing systems’ observability with proper metrics, monitors and alerts
Basic Qualifications
BS in Computer Science / Engineering or relevant work experience
5+ years of software engineering experience
Proficiency with Java
Demonstrable analytical / problem solving skills
Great communication, collaboration skills and a strong teamwork ethic with both technical and non-technical audiences
Preferred Qualifications
MS in Computer Science / Engineering
SpringBoot and related Spring projects - if you don’t know these it’s OK, but we do expect you to learn and understand best practices for the frameworks we use
Non-relational database technologies e.g. DynamoDB
Redis and/or MemCache
Apache Kafka and/or Kinesis
AWS or other cloud platform
Terraform, Docker and Kubernetes
Ad Tech industry
#DISNEYTECH
The hiring range for this position in Glendale, California is $152,200 to $204,100 per year and Santa Monica, California is $152,200 to $204,100 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.Job Posting Segment:
Ad PlatformsJob Posting Primary Business:
AP - Software EngineeringPrimary Job Posting Category:
Software EngineerEmployment Type:
Full timePrimary City, State, Region, Postal Code:
Glendale, CA, USAAlternate City, State, Region, Postal Code:
USA - CA - 2450 BroadwayDate Posted:
2025-07-02