Software Engineer - Java

The Walt Disney Company

📍New York, NY
Posted May 24, 2026

Job Overview

Position

Software Engineer - Java

Company

The Walt Disney Company

Location

New York, NY

Work Type

On-site

Job ID

li-4417593425

Job Description

Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology
On any given day at Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology, we’re reimagining ways to create magical viewing experiences for the world’s most beloved stories while also transforming Disney’s media 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 partners and to hundreds of millions of people around the world.

The Product & Data Engineering team is responsible for end to end development for Disney’s world-class consumer-facing products, including streaming platforms Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, and 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, Android, Smart TVs, game consoles, and the web, with our platforms powering core experiences like personalization, search, messaging and data.

*A few reasons why we think you’d love working for Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology*

  • Building the future of Disney’s media business: DE&E Technologists are designing and building the infrastructure that will power Disney’s media, advertising, and distribution businesses for years to come.

  • Reach & Scale: The products and platforms this group builds and operates 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, entertainment & news.

The Data Transformation team builds systems that provide data to teams across Disney Streaming. We implement reliable services that deliver data that helps power user experiences for Disney Streaming clients including Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN+, across web, mobile, and living room devices.

Job Summary for the Data Ingestion & Data Store (DIDS) Team
:

The DIDS Team is part of the derivative authority distribution platform (ADDP), which derives new types based on business rules and consumer needs. The DIDS team is responsible for ingesting data from root authorities and making it available for both offline and online transformation.

As a Software Engineer on the team, they would collaborate closely with engineers, project managers, and product managers to find the best solution for our viewers. They would be responsible for building high-performance, stable, and scalable systems in which the code is easy to read, well tested, and adheres to best practices.

Responsibilities And Duties Of The Role

  • Write code to implement new features or optimize existing services.

  • Test code through various means: unit tests, integration tests, performance tests, etc.

  • Participate in the code review process by providing feedback on pull requests

  • Participate in on-call rotation, supporting systems and services during production incidents.

  • Actively participate in team ceromancies and activities like stand-ups, scrum-ceremonies, high-level architecture discussions and breakdown and estimation of tasks.

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training
Basic Qualifications:

  • 3+ years of experience in software engineering

  • Proficient in Java and at least one other OOP language such as Kotlin, Scala, Python, Go, JavaScript or TypeScript

  • Experience using source control systems and CI/CD pipelines.

  • Able to design backend architectures.

  • Knowledge of caching technologies.

  • Strong grasp of computer science fundamentals (data structures, algorithms, databases, etc.)

  • Strong understanding of design patterns and principles.

  • Knowledge of asynchronous programming.

  • Strong communication skills and a desire to share your knowledge with team members and others at Disney.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience deploying and scaling within a cloud infrastructure.

  • Experience with messaging technologies (e.g., Kafka, Kinesis, SQS, etc.).

  • Experience with functional programming patterns.

Experience With

  • Datadog, New Relic or similar application monitoring software

  • Interacting with relational databases as well as NoSQL databases

  • Understanding of async programming models (events, callbacks, promises, async/await)

  • Understanding of source control concepts and exposure to Git

  • Build and deployment technologies such as Jenkins and Docker

Required Education

  • BA/BS degree in Computer Science or equivalent technical experience.

The hiring range for this position in New York, NY is $123,000 - $165,000 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.

Interview Prep

AI-powered insights to help you prepare

Key Skills

Required:
Preferred:

Practice Questions

💡Technical Questions (3)
  • 1.The DIDS team ingests data from root authorities and makes it available for online and offline transformation. How would you design a high-performance, scalable backend architecture in Java to handle this data ingestion pipeline?
  • 2.With systems powering high-scale streaming platforms like Disney+ and Hulu, caching is critical. Can you explain different caching strategies and how you would handle cache invalidation to ensure data consistency across online transformations?
  • 3.How do you apply design patterns and asynchronous programming principles in Java to build stable, scalable systems that are easy to read and maintain?
🎯Behavioral Questions (3)
  • 1.Tell me about a time you had to optimize an existing service for better performance and stability. What was your approach?
  • 2.Describe a situation where you participated in an on-call rotation and had to resolve a production incident. How did you handle the pressure and resolve the issue?
  • 3.Give an example of a time you collaborated closely with product managers and project managers to break down and estimate tasks for a complex feature. How did you ensure alignment?
🧩Situational Questions (2)
  • 1.You are on-call for the DIDS team, and a production incident occurs where data from a root authority is failing to ingest, causing downstream transformations for Disney+ clients to serve stale data. What are your immediate steps?
  • 2.During a code review, you notice a teammate has implemented a new feature using a synchronous approach that could severely impact the scalability of our data distribution platform. How do you handle this?

Resume Keywords

Make sure these keywords appear on your resume

JavaData IngestionBackend ArchitectureAsynchronous ProgrammingCachingCI/CDDesign PatternsStreaming PlatformsScalabilityCode Review

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