Senior Media Streaming Engineer

On any given day at Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology, we’re reimagining ways to create magical viewing experiences for the world’s most beloved stories while also transforming Disney’s direct to consumer business for the future. Whether that’s evolving our streaming and digital products in new and immersive ways, powering worldwide advertising and distribution to maximize flexibility and efficiency, or delivering Disney’s unmatched entertainment and sports content, every day is a moment to make a difference to hundreds of millions of people around the world.

The Product Engineering team is responsible for Disney’s world-class consumer-facing products, including our streaming platforms Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, as well as digital products & experiences across ESPN, Marvel, Disney Studios, NatGeo, and ABC News. The team drives innovation at scale for millions of consumers around the world across Apple and Android devices, Smart TVs, game consoles, and the web.

A few reasons why we think you’d love working for DEEP&T:

• Building the future of Disney’s streaming business: We are designing and building the infrastructure that will power Disney’s media, advertising, and distribution businesses for years to come.
• Reach & Scale: Our products and platforms delight millions of consumers every minute of every day – from Disney+ and Hulu, to ABC News and Entertainment, to ESPN and ESPN+, and much more.
• Innovation: We develop and execute groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms and enhance how audiences experience sports, news & entertainment. 

The Media Delivery team at Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology is responsible for the entire audio and video encoding supply chain from content acquisition to delivery for Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+. Consisting of an agile and responsive team of technicians that perform the daily processes and procedures of our live and on-demand video streaming products to deliver a high-quality experience to our viewers. The department’s responsibilities provide round-the-clock support for these products, ensuring proper functionality across all platforms and front-end playback scenarios. The Media Delivery Operations team provides operational and procedural support for our partner products, including system health monitoring and incident management, live and VOD streaming media orchestration, and cross-team communications.

As a Senior Media Streaming Engineer, you will work to improve our Audio & Video Encoding pipeline and provide the highest quality experience to our end users by assessing the quality of a large library of encoded VOD content spanning more than 100 years. Through collaboration with media engineers and operations teams, you will study the impact of current and upcoming codec implementations using programmatic analysis and "golden eyes" viewing of content with the goal of improving the quality of our media streams. This position requires a highly skilled individual with strong creative and analytic skills and passion for sound/picture quality, encoding and processing technologies.

• Investigate quality degradation and playback issues,
• Perform encoding experiments to determine areas for improvement,
• Establish Best Practices for assessing sound/picture quality,
• Work with other engineers on tooling and automation solutions.

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

• Development of software tools and scripts
• Design and implement procedures for assessing sound/picture quality
• Conduct sound/picture quality experiments on existing Disney content
• Contribute to the optimization of Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+ media processing pipeline

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

• Minimum and Preferred. Inclusive of Licenses/Certs (include functional experience as well as behavioral attributes and/or leadership capabilities).
• Bachelor’s Degree in related field – Master’s Degree a plus.
• Degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering preferred.
• Minimum of 5 years of related work experience.
• Expert in Linux (and Mac) environment with experience troubleshooting remote hosts.
• Advanced Linux BASH scripting experience.
• Advanced knowledge of at least one programming language (Python preferred).
• Comfortable modifying and contributing to XML/JSON schemas.
• Knowledge of media codecs such as PCM, AAC, EAC3, Atmos, Opus, AVC, HEVC and AV1.
• Solid understanding of HDR10+ and Dolby Vision metadata and ecosystem.
• Experienced in assessing visual quality using both objective metrics and subjective techniques.
• Solid understanding of media processing and deep learning enhancement techniques
• Experience with open-source encoding software such as FFmpeg or GStreamer.
• Good understanding of ABR streaming, specifically HLS.
• Excellent problem-solving and debugging skills for encoding and segmentation issues.
• Basic understanding of DAI workflows in an OTT environment.
• Comfortable serving as a technical lead across departments to address and resolve issues.
• Ability to work independently in a lab to solve problems in both the video and IT domains.
• Strong multi-tasking abilities.
• Strong communication skills.

The hiring range for this position in Glendale, CA and Santa Monica, CA is $114,900.00 to $154,100.00 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.