Manager, Software Engineering

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology

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 Ads Data team is under Ad Platforms and its mission is to transform advertising and Disney's Ad platform with data and AI across TV and streaming video. We build solutions to measure and optimize every aspect of the advertising life cycle. At our core is a strong cross-domain team to deliver E2E solutions covering tech areas ranging from machine learning, big data, microservices to data visualization.

Our team is seeking a software engineering manager who will lead an engineering team within the Ads Data team. This engineering group focuses on industry-leading ad decisioning solutions, big data infrastructure, operational data, audience solution, inventory forecasting and full funnel measurements as a foundation layer for Disney’s addressable Ad Platforms.

The right person for this role should be experienced with big data technologies, high performance services, organization development, and crafting implementation for either service/data products or full stack solutions. If you are someone who is proactive, hardworking, and enthusiastic in these domains, this is a phenomenal role for you!

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Lead an engineering team in constructing a next-generation, big-data and AI-driven advertising system to advance Disney's addressable advertising platform capabilities
• Continuously evolve team mission, strategy and charter, and develop team structure for changing business needs and technology trend
• Drive adoption of the best engineering practices, including the use of design patterns, CI/CD, code review and automated integration testing
• Foster a culture of high ownership, continuous learning, and technical excellence
• Collaborate with stakeholders across analytics, product, and engineering to prioritize and deliver impactful data solutions
• Drive execution, ensuring projects are delivered on time, with high quality and operational reliability
• Manage career development, performance, and engagement of your team members
• Ensure the team follows best practices in testing, monitoring, and data quality

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

• BS in Computer Science, or a related quantitative field; or equivalent practical experience demonstrating advanced technical expertise and proven leadership capabilities.
• 2+ years of engineering management experience, with 8+ years in data engineering or distributed systems
• Strong background in big data technologies such as Spark, Flink, and Airflow
• Proficiency with Scala or a similar JVM-based language
• Experience building on AWS, especially with data infrastructure (S3, EMR, Glue, Lambda, etc.)
• Hands-on familiarity with Databricks for collaborative data development and operations
• In-depth experience of industry level highly available and scalable service
• Proven ability to balance technical depth with delivery focus and team leadership
• Strong communication skills and a collaborative, empathetic leadership style
• Passion about technologies, and openness to interdisciplinary work
• Background in hiring, onboarding, and building inclusive team culture

Preferred Qualifications:

• MS in Computer Science, or a related quantitative field
• Experience in digital advertising
• Experience with machine learning and AI
• Exposure to governance, privacy, or data quality at scale  

#DISNEYTECH

The hiring range for this position in Los Angeles, California is $167,700.00 - $224,900.00 per year and in Seattle, Washington is $175,800.00 - $235,700.00 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.