Lead Media Streaming Engineer

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.

• 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.
   

Media Engineering is an innovative organization that is passionate about providing the best possible video playback experience, art, and metadata to customers worldwide, powered by exceptional technology. This 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.

Would you love to be at the forefront of shaping the future of video streaming technology? Are you passionate about video encoding technologies and optimizing video streaming systems? As a Lead Media Streaming Engineer at Disney, you will be part of the Media Delivery Live team, which is responsible for the entire audio and video encoding supply chain from content acquisition to delivery, consisting of an agile and responsive team of technicians that perform the daily processes and procedures of our live and on-demand video streaming products. The department’s responsibilities provide round-the-clock support for these products, ensuring proper functionality across all platforms and front-end playback scenarios. The Media Delivery Live team provides technical and engineering support for our partner products, including workflow design and implementation, incident management and system health monitoring for live streaming media orchestration and cross-team communications.

Responsibilities

You would join a diverse and networked team that collaborates on initiatives that drive streaming video technology to the next level. What makes us different from other media streaming groups? We use innovation and technical experience to transform projects into experiences that can directly impact the happiness of our Subscribers.

This is a lead position on the Media Delivery Live team, a small team of engineers responsible for implementing, maintaining and supporting live streaming, and packaging, workflows for Disney’s over-the-top video products. It is an excellent opportunity for someone looking to advance their career in the live streaming space working in a dynamic, fast-paced, and sophisticated technical environment.

You will be responsible for architecting, and optimizing, the video encoding and packaging portion of Disney’s video live streaming ecosystem. You will be a main contributor to the design, deployment, and maintenance of live encoders in our production environments. The ideal candidate would an extensive background in live video streaming technologies. The ideal candidate must also have strong troubleshooting skills within the entire live video streaming ecosystem.

• Design and implement new live streaming workflows.
• Develop support tools, scripts & dashboards.
• Develop automation scripting and video analysis tools.
• Implement engineering projects that support ever changing workflows and requirements.
• Identify and implement optimizations related to live encoder monitoring and alerting.
• Troubleshoot encoding and segmentation issues.
• Provide maintenance/support of our live encoders and packagers.
• Provide training to internal team members.
• Documentation of workflows and standard operation procedures.

Basic Qualifications

• Typically has 7 or more years of progressively complex related experience.
• B.S. in Computer Science, Information Technology, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent experience.
• Experience designing and building, live streaming workflows.
• Experience working with on prem, and cloud based, live streaming solutions.
• Experience working in a video OTT/broadcast environment.
• Ability to work independently to solve problems in both the video and IT domains.
• Knowledge of video codecs and compression. (H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC)
• Knowledge of audio codecs and containers. (AAC, PCM, AC-3, EAC-3, MPEG-1 Layer-II)
• Extensive knowledge of ABR/OTT technologies. (HLS, DASH)
• High level of experience with MPEG Transport Streams in broadcast and ABR workflows
• Comfortable with Mac, Linux, and Windows environments, specifically on the command line.
• Strong communication skills.
• Strong scripting experience. (BASH, Python, Ruby)
• Strong experience with automation suites. (AWX/Ansible, Puppet)
• Experience with REST API communication, either manually (cURL/Postman), or programmatically (through a scripting language library).
• Experience writing technical documentation for consumption by both technical and non-technical people.
• Understanding of DAI workflows in an OTT environment.
• Comfortable troubleshooting with Transport Stream and Elementary Stream analyzers.
• Strong to advanced experience with command-line video tools like FFMPEG, MP4Box, and TSDuck.
• Strong network transport knowledge. (Multicast, TCP/UDP)
• Comfortable acting as a technical lead to other departments to address and resolve technical issues.
• Knowledge of the ANSI/SCTE 35 specification preferred.

The hiring range for this position in New York is $132,500.00 to $177,600.00 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.