Senior Software Engineer

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 redefining 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 improve 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.

• 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 implement groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms and enhance how audiences experience sports, entertainment & news.

Media Engineering is an innovative organization that is focused on providing the best possible video playback experience, art, and metadata to customers around the world, powered by exceptional technology. This strategic work requires streamlining and repurposing technology across different business and distribution channels - including streaming, linear, and theatrical - so that technology can ebb and flow across the needs of the business.

A Senior Software Engineer (P3) in the Media Processing & Distribution (MPD) System Engineering & Integration team has many different responsibilities. For this team, that includes -

• Media validation, including fidelity analysis, specification alignment for media and generated manifests/playlists

• System integration validation; large- and small-scale systems, including end-to-end workflows

• Work independently and collaboratively designing, developing and implementing automated solutions for workflow validation

Media validation of encoded assets includes objective and subjective analysis, with extensive experience working with digital media a requirement. This engineer should have extensive experience with and in-depth knowledge of OTT concepts. This position will require an engineer to validate a workflow that incorporates media ingestion to processed media delivery. There is a heavy focus on post-processed manifest creation and Dynamic Ad Insertion implementation. This engineer will work to identify anomalies that could result in non-compliance, impacting the playback experience. This can include malformed metadata, incorrect SCTE-35 marker placement, and incorrect playlist tags. This engineer will need to communicate these impacts effectively and work closely with other teams to work through problem analysis and implementation of fixes.

Responsibilities:

The engineer will also be required to work through the integration of various software solutions in order to verify system functionality and design. These systems make up the various pipelines of Disney’s streaming platform; VOD and Live/Linear, including Low-Latency applications and live HDR content. This position requires working closely with developers to define acceptance criteria and expectations for software under validation. Issues discovered require debugging and identifying root causes, and at times, implementing the fix. This engineer should be able to work independently after gathering requirements, but still participate in collaborative opportunities within the team.

At the core of our system integration and validation is the Integration Framework and engineers leverage this framework to perform tests, exercise APIs, and benchmark performance. A newly placed engineer should be able to quickly learn the concepts and implementation of the framework. Software development for this framework requires skilled coding abilities, fluency and experience developing in Python. This engineer will be responsible for identifying solutions to a wide variety of issues and features, including automating integration validators, using the Framework to mimic larger systems, and invoking MPD software components.

Basic Qualifications:

• BS or MS degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or equivalent experience

• 5+ years experience working with video/audio technologies and concepts; OTT delivery, encoding (H.264 / H.265, Dynamic Range, etc.) and packaging (CMAF, HLS, DASH, etc.)

• 5+ years experience working with Ad Insertion workflows and comprehensive knowledge of the following:

  • ○ SCTE-35, SCTE-104, SCTE-214

  • ○ SSAI, CSAI, SGAI (preferred)

• 5+ years experience developing in Python

• Experience working in an Agile software development organization

• Advanced experience developing REST APIs

• Experience contributing to CI/CD solutions with an understanding of CI/CD concepts

• Advanced experience with Linux, Docker

• Experience working with Git

• Excellent communications skills; written and verbal

• Driven, self-starter with an established work ethic

The hiring range for this position in New York is $142,600-$191,200 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.