Senior Media Systems Engineer

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.

Job Summary:

Disney Media Systems Engineers have a clear charter: to transform the capability and flexibility of how Disney acquires, produces, and distributes content worldwide, all while ensuring the highest levels of quality, efficiency, and resiliency.

Disney Media Systems Engineers often find themselves at the crossroads between hardware and software-based technology and must possess a comprehensive theoretical and practical understanding of the technology that powers the generation, monetization, and distribution of all forms of consumer- facing linear and digital video/audio content. Responsibility includes numerous systems such as Playout Technology, Studios, Production Control Rooms, Remote Production, Post-Production, Contribution/Distribution Systems, Networking, Cloud Compute, Production Software and Virtual Environment and more.

The Sr. Media Systems Engineer acts as a technical leader and is responsible for the design and implementation working closely with management and Executive Leadership to make recommendations and advance Disney’s technical posture.

The Sr. Media Systems Engineer will work with vendors and industry trade organizations to define and evolve industry standards, solutions that impact our business. The Sr. Media Systems Engineer will lead and own all aspects of the design and build of Disney’s most impactful projects and will leverage their experience to create documentation, procedures, and standards that drive all our technological development.

Responsibilities

• Responsible and play the lead role for technical implementation of traditional broadcast production systems and cloud -based infrastructure that support content acquisition, production, encoding, decoding, and content distribution across multiple DE&E Technology networks (linear, digital, and streaming platforms)
• Take lead role on projects to modernize our legacy media production infrastructure systems to make way for advancements such as SMPTE ST 2110, 4K, UHD HDR, JPEGxs, NDI, ProRes Raw, H.265, AV1, including multi resolution support across broadcast facilities (720p/1080/4K/UHD/HDR), metadata conversion, audio mapping, system outages, microservices architecture tunning and related technical problems.
• Take lead role and coordinate the construction of facilities, upgrades and the installation of equipment including core routing, intercom, playout, distribution systems, non-linear edit systems, graphics, video servers, storage solutions, file acquisition, file transcode, file transfer, media asset management and automation systems. Collaborate closely with installation engineers, equipment manufacturers, vendors, technical operations staff, and others involved in the projects.
• Collaborate closely with DE&ET and operations’ management to assess facility needs. Develops project plans, schedules, and capital planning, forecasting and estimations. Collaborates closely with equipment manufacturers and vendors to understand the range of equipment that might be relevant to support broadcasting facilities and operations.

Basic Qualifications

• Minimum of 5 years of broadcast engineering experience
• Bachelor’s or Master's Degree in Engineering or Computer Science, or comparable field of study and/or equivalent work experience
• Strong understanding of baseband/IP video, audio and digital compression, transport systems, audio/video encoding/transcoding techniques and formats. Knowledge of file transfer acceleration technologies and techniques.

Preferred Qualifications

• Proficiency in AutoCAD
• Working knowledge of DNS, DHCP, TCP/IP, HTTP, UDP, SSL, and SNMP.
• Excellent communication and organizational skills
• Proficiency in at least one of the following languages: Perl, Python, Ruby, Shell, C or C++.
• Familiar with SMPTE standards for broadcast television and video production/streaming environments with a current certification such as not limited to ST 292M, ST 424M, ST 2110, ST 2059, IEE1588, ST 2022-7, SCTE-104, etc.
• Knowledge and experience with on-prem and cloud-based storage and compute infrastructure platforms and current technological offerings. File-based workflows like enterprise Media Asset Management systems (Cloud-based Cloud Compute or Local Network-based) including storage, compute, encode and distribution.
• Knowledge and experience with compression techniques such as MPEG2/4, HEVC, JPEG 2000, and JPEG XS.
• Knowledge and experience with major media systems and the vendors that supply them in areas such as signal routing infrastructure, intercom, playout, asset management systems, file-based workflows, media acquisition, transcoding/encoding, graphics, and NAS/SAN technologies.

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