Software Engineering Intern, Summer 2026

About the Role & Program:

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.

Here are a few reasons why we think you’d love working here: 

1. 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. 

2. 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.  

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

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.

What You Will Do:

You’d work on the Manifest Delivery team and be accountable for ensuring that customers can play back videos – the core functionality of Disney’s streaming services. The team's responsibilities include delivering HLS and DASH manifests that power the in-app players across a variety of players for the VOD and Live experience. The team is involved in end-to-end quality of service for playback, from how long it takes to start a video to how the video segments are delivered.

Responsibilities include:

• Working on high scale backend systems built in Golang to deliver the video playback experience to end users

• Building and maintaining distributed infrastructure in AWS

• Participating in code reviews and team software architecture design reviews

• Learning video streaming technologies and specifications such as DASH and HLS

• Building tooling, monitoring and alerting to support the maintenance of our highly available, fault tolerant systems

Required Qualifications & Skills:

• Knowledge and experience in programing with Go, C, C++, or Java

• Knowledge of some distributed system concepts (i.e. REST API design, distributed networking, cloud infrastructure, etc.)

• Eagerness to learn about video engineering technologies

• A proactive nature with clear communication and collaboration skills

Preferred Qualifications & Skills:

• Experience building backend web servers

• Familiarity and experience setting up cloud-based applications in AWS

• Knowledge of cross-team code maintenance best practices (i.e. git workflows, code testing paradigms, etc.)

• Familiarity with video streaming technology concepts

Education:

• Junior or Senior year preferred

• Currently enrolled undergraduate student in an accredited college/university, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Management Information Systems, Information Technology or related field.

Eligibility Requirements & Program Information

Candidates for this opportunity MUST meet all of the below requirements:

• Be enrolled in an accredited college/university pursuing a degree taking at least one class in the semester/quarter (spring/fall) prior to participation in the internship program AND returning to school the semester/quarter following the internship OR currently participating in a Disney College Program or Disney Internship.

• Current Disney Interns, College, International, or Culinary Program Participants:  You may only work for ONE consecutive year (12 months) in any combination of an internship and/or program.  

• Be at least 18 years of age

• Possess unrestricted work authorization

Additional Information  

• Fully available from M-F, 40 hours each week for the entire program duration: May/June - August/September 2026 (12 weeks)

• Able to provide own housing for the duration internship program

• Able to provide/have reliable transportation to/from work