Director, Software Engineering

Santa Monica, CA

The DMED Technology organization plays a central role in the future growth of The Walt Disney Company. Our team is responsible for worldwide linear and digital media distribution, design and development of all consumer-facing digital products, advertising technology, consumer data, and international broadcast operations. Our employees are leading, creating, and innovating, making bold moves in unexpected directions that redefine not just what a media company does, but what it can do. With The Walt Disney Company, you can be part of media's evolution, helping us create what's next.

Ad Serving Engineering organization within Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution organization is fully responsible for building, enhancing and maintaining the high-performance, distributed, microservice-based Digital Advertising Platform. The platform is charged with the qualification, delivery, and tracking of Digital Advertising campaigns (Video on Demand, Live TV, and innovative interactive ads) across all of Disney online properties, including Hulu and ESPN+.

In addition, Ad Serving teams collaborate in the development of supporting components, such as anti-ad fatigue systems, impression counting pipelines, and ad experience flows. We also work on integrations with critical services responsible for the correct pacing, targeting, and selection of ads.

As a member of our team, you will apply your knowledge and skills to help grow and build the teams under your org to deliver scalable, performant, maintainable, and testable software.

You will bring:

A willingness and desire to effectively communicate and collaborate across teams and systems.
Demonstrated ownership for the projects delivered by your team and department
Knowledge of system design and implementation best practices to guide and mentor
A passion for mentoring, learning, and adapting to a very dynamic and fast paced environment
A proven ability to work with product teams to
Translate requirements into well-defined technical implementations, as well as the ability to define technical and operational metrics to measure system health
Understand and advise on technical feasibility of future roadmap initiatives
A keen eye for potential optimizations and enhancements to our services
Kindness and pragmatic optimism
Your unique view and experience

Responsibilities:

Coach and mentor development leads and engineers on the team to produce software that conforms to the highest quality standards.
Partner with the Product teams to understand their business needs and design outstanding and efficient solutions to complex business problems.
Work with other teams across the DMED organization to ensure that advertising works flawlessly across a wide array of devices and applications, and that data and metrics flow efficiently into reporting and financial systems.
Accountable for performance and results of multiple related and/or large teams
Provide guidance and direction regarding design and implementation on projects to improve and extend DMED’s existing ad serving platform and its supporting systems.
Guide new architectural decisions and best practices
Coach and mentor development leads and engineers on the team to produce software that conforms to the highest quality standards.
Partner with the Product teams to understand their business needs and design outstanding and efficient solutions to complex business problems.
Work with other teams across the DMED organization to ensure that advertising works flawlessly across a wide array of devices and applications, and that data and metrics flow efficiently into reporting and financial systems.
Educate and guide leadership on most sensitive time, budget and software functionality tradeoffs.
Conduct weekly 1:1 meetings with managers and team members under their org to guide them through personal and career development
Conduct annual reviews for direct reports
Grow the team and build smaller pods as needed

Basic Qualifications:

10+ years of software engineering experience and 6+ years of management experience
Advanced proficiency with Java, such as understanding heap, multi-threading, profiling
Demonstrable analytical / problem solving skills
Great communication, collaboration skills and a strong teamwork ethic with both technical and non-technical audiences

Technical skills

Non-relational database technologies viz. DynamoDB
Distributed caches viz. Redis and/or MemCache
Message Brokers viz. Apache Kafka and/or Kinesis
AWS or other cloud platform

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience with:

SpringBoot and related Spring projects
Terraform, Docker and Kubernetes
Ad Tech industry

Required Education

BS in Computer Science / Engineering or relevant work experience

Preferred Education

MS in Computer Science / Engineering

This role is considered remote, which means the employee will work remotely on an ongoing basis and will not have an assigned workspace at a Company designated location.

About Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution:

Comprised of the Company’s international business units and various direct-to-consumer streaming services, Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution (DMED) aligns technology, media distribution and advertising sales into a single business segment to create and deliver personalized entertainment experiences to consumers around the world.

This position is with Disney Streaming Technology LLC, which is part of a business we call Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution.

Disney Streaming Technology LLC is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or protected veteran status. Disney fosters a business culture where ideas and decisions from all people help us grow, innovate, create the best stories and be relevant in a rapidly changing world.