Senior 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:

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.

Content Platforms & Operations is responsible for the development and ongoing advancement of the technical and operational functions driving the worldwide distribution and monetization of Disney’s linear networks and theatrical content. This includes Disney’s media supply chain and storage, network and theatrical distribution operations, media localization, network transmission and origination, and more. The global team also plays a critical role as the primary collaboration point for Product & Technology with Disney’s EMEA, APAC, and LATAM regional business teams.

Job Summary:

We are seeking a Senior Engineering Manager with a strong software engineering foundation to lead a software engineering team building and supporting ML-assisted content inspection pipelines within our Content Platform Engineering organization. Our team develops and operates distributed systems and services that power Disney’s media supply chain, enabling reliable content delivery for iconic brands including Disney+, ESPN+, Hulu, ABC, Marvel, and Star Wars.

In this role, you will provide technical and people leadership for engineers designing, implementing, and operating production systems that integrate LLMs and computer vision techniques to automate content inspection, validation, and enrichment. Drawing on your background as a software engineer, you will remain closely involved in system design and architectural decisions, ensuring strong software engineering fundamentals such as scalability, reliability, and maintainability.

As a senior engineering leader, you will contribute to technical strategy and architectural alignment across related teams, foster strong communication and leadership development within your team, and ensure engineering work is aligned with product and organizational goals.

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

• Lead Software Engineering Efforts: Provide technical leadership for designing, implementing, and operating scalable distributed systems

• Manage and Develop Engineers: Lead, mentor, and develop a team of software engineers, setting clear expectations for technical ownership, delivery, and career growth.

• Own Delivery and Execution: Plan and deliver content initiatives by partnering with product stakeholders, managing scope and priorities, and ensuring high-quality measurable outcomes

• Drive Technical Collaboration and Alignment: Collaborate with adjacent engineering, ML, and platform teams to ensure consistent technical approaches, clear system boundaries, and effective integration of shared services

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

Basic Qualifications

• 10+ years relevant industry experience and 3+ years managing a team
• Proven track record of delivering complex software projects on time and within scope, including planning, prioritization, and risk mitigation.
• Experience managing a team of software engineers, including providing mentorship, conducting performance reviews, and supporting career growth.
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience designing and building distributed systems, services, and APIs (REST and/or GraphQL).
• Experience working with cloud platforms such as AWS and core services (e.g., S3, Lambda, EC2).
• Experience operating and supporting production systems, including monitoring, troubleshooting, and iterative improvement.
• Proficiency in at least one core programming language (e.g., Java, Python, or JavaScript) for building reliable and maintainable software solutions.
• Experience with containerization and orchestration tools such as Docker and Kubernetes.
• Knowledge of software engineering best practices, including testing frameworks, CI/CD pipelines, code reviews, and documentation standards.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience integrating LLMs or other AI/ML inference services into production systems, including managing latency, reliability, and throughput.
• Hands-on familiarity with computer vision pipelines or LLM-based workflows for content analysis, inspection, or validation.
• Exposure to machine learning frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-learn)
• Experience working within a media supply chain

Required Education  

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience.

The hiring range for this position in Glendale and Bristol is $188,400 to $252,600 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.