Software Engineer I

Disney Entertainment & 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.

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.

Job Summary

As part of the Living Room Devices, Browser Based Device, Client Application Engineering Team, you will help us push the boundaries of what is possible on some of the most interesting 10-foot devices and TVs in the marketplace! You’ll be part of the team that builds our Direct-to-Consumer client apps, such as Disney+, ESPN, and Hulu on a wide range of devices that run on browser and JavaScript technologies.

We’re seeking a Software Engineer I who will be an outstanding addition to our JavaScript browser-based devices team. The right person for this role is an engineer who has educational experience, work experience, or personal project time developing software, and is ready to help develop client apps that provide the best experiences for our viewers. Everything we do directly affects millions of global consumers and their experience with our service as well as impacts our business.  

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role

• Bring entry-level JavaScript engineering skills to be a critical member of a team of engineers responsible for building our client application experiences on browser-based TVs and set-top boxes.

• Contribute to the development of new application features from on-boarding to browse UI/UX experiences, analytics, video playback UI/UX and much more. If you see it on screen, you’ll likely have a chance to work on it in code.

• Rapidly prototype and implement scalable, reliable, and maintainable applications using TypeScript, JavaScript, and other web development technologies.

• Work closely with UX designers, product managers, and engineering peers to build best-of-class, delightful streaming experiences.

• Collaborate with other developers to build, review, and deliver code to Samsung, LG, and other streaming-media devices.

• Use data and experimentation to reinforce the value of new product functionality, ensure that we are providing the best experience possible for our viewers, and continuously improve our applications.

Basic Qualifications

• Familiarity with general web development using HTML and CSS

• Experience with JavaScript

• General knowledge of software development patterns and practices

• Experience with data structures and algorithms

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience creating beautiful, rich, performant user interfaces, including implementing pixel-perfect designs and animations

• Experience working on user interface-level code and knowledge of common patterns and architectures (MVVM, MVC, React, etc.), and approaches to present a data-driven UX to viewers

• Under the guidance of senior engineers, candidates will be expected to become proficient in the use of reusable utilities and UI components, and generalized logic that can be consumed by multiple applications

• Familiarity with development and troubleshooting on set-top boxes or Smart TVs

• Experience working on a range of devices with varying performance and capabilities

• Experience with configuration-driven development

• Experience with performance optimization and feature degradation techniques

• Experience with asynchronous and concurrent code

• Experience with unit testing and related patterns

• Experience with JavaScript client- and server-side development

• Experience with DevOps, including Gulp, Jenkins, and AWS

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

The hiring range for this position in Seattle, WA & New York, NY is $99,900.00 to $133,900.00 and in San Francisco, CA is $104,400.00 to $140,000.00. 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