Senior Manager, Software Engineering

Job Posting Title:

Senior Manager, Software Engineering

Req ID:

10122272

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:

1. 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.

2. 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. 

3. 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.

User Access

The User Access team builds critical pipelines and services for aggregating and delivering key user context information to multiple client and backend services. This information in turn powers the entire user experience, from browse to playback capabilities, experimentation and analytics. We're a fast-paced, dynamic, collaborative and fun team, and are looking for someone who can slot right in and start delivering from day 1.

***This is an onsite role and must sit in one of our technology offices in the locations listed above***

Job Summary:

We are seeking a motivated senior engineering manager to lead our platform which powers Disney Streaming apps (Disney+, Hulu and Star+). As the Senior Manager of User Access, you will manage a large team of engineers to design, build, and manage scalable distributed systems & applied algorithms that power multiple experiences for Disney Streaming. This team has an enormous impact on millions of users of our streaming applications. You will work closely with senior engineering leadership and software architects to craft the technical vision and roadmap for the domain. Your technical leadership will be instrumental in driving innovation and delivering high-quality features at scale.

On a daily basis you should bring:

• A willingness and desire to effectively communicate and collaborate across teams and systems.
• A sense of ownership of the projects delivered by your team and department
• A passion for mentoring, learning, and adapting to a very dynamic and fast paced environment
• An understanding of how to define technical and operational metrics to measure system health and to manage risk.
• A keen eye for potential optimizations and enhancements to our services
• Kindness and pragmatic optimism.
• Your unique view and experience
• A passion for building diverse and effective teams

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

• Set a strategic and technical vision across teams
• Lead the design, development, testing, deployment, and support of stateful microservices
• Lead a team of engineers who design, develop, and maintain our technology to enhance the user experience for Disney Streaming customers across Hulu, D+ and Star+
• Lead the design and timely implementation of critical platform features
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams like Product and Program to identify business requirements and provide technical solutions
• Mentor, empower and provide career growth opportunities for team members.
• Foster and maintain effective communication channels with your team members, stakeholders, and senior leadership.
• Monitor and improve the performance, scalability, and reliability of our infrastructure
• Stay up-to-date with the latest relevance and ranking technology trends and innovations, and evaluate their potential impact on our domains.

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• At least 10 years of experience in the software engineering field, with a focus on building highly available architecture, shipping robust code and creating a positive team environment
• At least 5 years of experiences in a leadership or management role in technology
• At least 2 years as a manager of managers
• Demonstrated success in being part of a team problem-solving, designing and implementing software at scale
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with experience presenting to senior leadership and external partners.
• Proven leadership, coaching, and mentoring skills, with the ability to inspire and empower a team towards achieving business goals.
• Experience with performance tuning and building/maintaining software that is in the critical path
• Bias towards action, with experience delivering high-quality software solutions on time, at scale and within budget.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with consumer facing services and high-scale systems.
• Experience working with identity, commerce and/or authorization systems
• Understanding of deploying and scaling within a cloud infrastructure.
• Experience working with remote global teams and a flexible schedule to meet in different time zones.
• Experience leading multiple teams

Required Education  

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience.
• Minimum of 10 years related work experience.

The hiring range for this position in New York, NY and Seattle, WA is $159,500 - $213,900 per year, Bristol, CT and Los Angeles, CA is $184,300 - $247,100 per year and San Francisco CA is $201,900 - $270,700 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.

Job Posting Segment:

Product & Data Engineering

Job Posting Primary Business:

PDE - Engagement Experiences & Platforms

Primary Job Posting Category:

Software Engineer

Employment Type:

Full time

Primary City, State, Region, Postal Code:

Santa Monica, CA, USA

Alternate City, State, Region, Postal Code:

USA - CA - 3800 W Alameda Ave, USA - CA - Market St, USA - NY - 7 Hudson Square

Date Posted:

2025-05-29