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—working together to build and advance the technological backbone of Disney’s media business worldwide.

The team marries technology with creativity to build world‑class products, enhance storytelling, and drive velocity, innovation, and scalability across 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 touchpoints serving millions of people around the world.
 

Why You’ll Love Working Here

Building the future of Disney’s media
Our technologists design and build the products and platforms that will power our media, advertising, and distribution businesses for years to come.

Reach, Scale & Impact
Disney’s technology and products serve as a primary connection point between fans and our brands and stories—Disney+, Hulu, ESPN, ABC, ABC News, and more. These products and the unmatched stories and events they carry matter to millions globally.

Innovation
We develop and implement groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms and solve complex, distinctive technical problems.
 

Ad Platforms is responsible for Disney’s industry‑leading advertising technology and products, driving advertising performance, innovation, and value across Disney’s sports, news, and entertainment content on all media platforms.
 

Job Summary

We are seeking a hands‑on Senior Staff Product Development Engineer with deep expertise in .NET Core, C#, and ASP.NET Core to join our high‑performing engineering team. In this role, you will lead the design, development, and delivery of scalable, high‑performance web applications and backend services that power critical business functions.
 

This hybrid role balances 60% hands‑on engineering with 40% technical leadership and collaboration, making it ideal for someone who enjoys coding, system architecture, and mentoring others.
 

While the primary focus is backend engineering, candidates should have working knowledge of front‑end technologies such as JavaScript and ReactJS to effectively troubleshoot and collaborate across the full stack. You will play a key role in driving engineering excellence, implementing best practices, and ensuring solutions are robust, maintainable, and aligned with long‑term business goals.
 

What You’ll Do

As a Senior Staff Product Development Engineer, you will:

• Architect and develop backend systems and services that meet high standards for scalability, performance, and security
• Participate in and frequently lead technical planning, design sessions, and code reviews
• Collaborate closely with product managers, UI developers, QA engineers, and DevOps to translate business requirements into elegant technical solutions
• Resolve full‑stack issues, particularly those requiring deep backend insight while touching frontend components
• Support production systems and maintain system health through logging, monitoring, and optimization
• Mentor engineers, set architectural direction, and foster a supportive, high‑performing team culture
• Help modernize platforms using containerization, event streaming, and Kubernetes‑based deployments
• Stay current with emerging technologies, continuously learn, and mentor others

Experience with hybrid cloud deployments, observability platforms (Splunk, Datadog), and legacy system modernization is a strong plus. Familiarity with CI/CD tools such as Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions will help you integrate seamlessly into our workflow.
 

Responsibilities

• Lead engineering teams in building robust, fault‑tolerant, cloud‑native architectures
• Design and implement solutions using Azure managed services
• Apply logical and creative problem‑solving to develop high‑performing web applications
• Collaborate with senior, lead, and QA engineers to align architecture principles and technology direction
• Lead code reviews and provide technical leadership to junior engineers
• Deliver multiple projects using Agile Scrum methodology
• Take ownership of application quality, stability, and performance
• Write complex programs, analyze code changes, and suggest improvements
• Contribute clean, valuable code on a daily basis
• Create reference implementations to mentor junior engineers
• Define engineering standards and provide technical mentorship
• Investigate and resolve production issues across the full stack
• Partner with product and project managers to ensure timely, high‑quality delivery
• Collaborate effectively with other service teams

Basic Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in web application development or software engineering in a large enterprise environment using the Microsoft technology stack
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Information Systems, Engineering, or another technical field or equalivalent experience
• Strong experience with ASP.NET Core, Docker, and Kubernetes
• Significant experience with relational databases (SQL Server) and NoSQL data stores
• Experience with event streaming platforms such as Kafka
• Familiarity with cloud‑native storage technologies (Azure Storage)
• Strong interest in open‑source technologies
• Excellent communication skills and a passion for mentoring
• Strong opinions about engineering craftsmanship and best practices
• Demonstrated ability to provide technical direction and influence design decisions across teams
• Experience mentoring senior engineers and leading code and design reviews at scale
   

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related discipline
• Experience in ad‑tech applications
• Experience working with vendor teams
• Knowledge of performance testing and application profiling
• Curiosity about how Disney delivers magic—and a desire to be part of it
• Prior experience as a tech lead or engineering lead on cross‑functional or distributed teams
• Track record of driving complex systems from inception to production
• Experience contributing to long‑term technical roadmaps and engineering strategy
   

Technology Experience

• Backend: .NET Core, C#, ASP.NET Core, REST APIs
• Data: SQL Server, Oracle, Redis, ElasticSearch, RavenDB
• Streaming: Kafka
• Cloud: Azure, AKS, Key Vaults, Azure Storage
• Testing: NUnit
• Architecture: OOP, Dependency Injection
• Containers: Docker with Azure Kubernetes Service
• Observability: Splunk, Datadog, Grafana
• Platform modernization and technology evaluation