Product Software Engineer I

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.  

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. 

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: 

As a member of the Sports Backend Engineering Product APIs team, you will help build and support the services and APIs that deliver sports data and content to Disney Entertainment and ESPN digital products across platforms, including the ESPN app, ESPN.com, ESPN Studio shows, and more. As a Product Software Engineer I, you will contribute to modernizing backend platforms, developing scalable services, and growing your technical expertise through hands-on engineering work. We are looking for a curious, motivated technologist who is eager to learn, solve meaningful problems, and contribute to a collaborative, high-performing team. 

In this role, you will: 

• Implement features and fix bugs within backend services and APIs under the guidance of senior engineers 

• Contribute to the development and testing of scalable backend services that deliver sports data and content to frontend clients and applications across platforms 

• Participate in code reviews, learning and applying team coding standards and best practices 

• Assist in analyzing and resolving engineering problems involving high-traffic web and mobile application services and APIs 

• Collaborate with product managers and fellow engineers in the design and implementation of systems delivering high-throughput experiences 

• Support the operation of mission-critical cloud-based services, with an emphasis on reliability, security, and performance 

• Break down features into tasks and contribute to sprint planning and estimation 

• Research and experiment with new technologies to support current and future projects 

• Grow your skills through mentorship, feedback, and hands-on experience with modern backend systems 

Come help shape the future of the APIs and backend systems underpinning Disney products used by millions of users every day! 

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role: 

• Write efficient, reliable, and testable code from defined requirements 

• Design, implement, and maintain automated code and system tests 

• Review, analyze, and optimize code for readability, reliability, scalability, and performance 

• Instrument, monitor, and support live operations of systems owned by the team 

• Troubleshoot and resolve issues encountered across company platforms and services 

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training: 

Basic Qualifications 

• Foundational knowledge of programming concepts, data structures, and algorithms 

• Experience or coursework with Java or similar object-oriented languages 

• Exposure to software development best practices including unit testing, code reviews, and version control (Git) 

• Demonstrated ability to learn and adapt to new technologies 

• Strong communication skills and attention to detail 

• Ability to work constructively in a collaborative, diverse team environment 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Experience with open-source technologies such as Spring, Tomcat, MySQL, Kafka, or Elasticsearch 

• Familiarity with RESTful API design and development 

• Exposure to CI/CD pipelines and deployment practices 

• Interest in or experience with high-volume, fault-tolerant distributed systems 

• Familiarity with observability tools and monitoring practices 

• Experience with containerization (Docker) and orchestration platforms 

• Hands-on experience or strong interest in Generative AI 

• Familiarity with cloud-based technologies such as AWS (EC2, ECS, S3, Lambda) or equivalent platforms 

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.