Lead Software 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.

A few reasons why we think you’d love working for Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology

• 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.

Job Summary:

We are seeking a motivated and experienced lead engineer for the search platform team for Hulu. You will work with a team of developers to design, build, and manage scalable distributed systems & applied algorithms that power search functionality for the Hulu application. This team has an enormous impact on millions of users of our streaming applications. As a lead engineer, you will be asked to provide technical leadership in driving innovation and delivering high-quality search features at scale.

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

• Design, develop, and maintain our search technology to enhance the user experience for Hulu customers
• Participate in architecture design for search, relevance, and ranking problems
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams like Product and Program to identify search-related business requirements and provide technical solutions
• Mentor, empower and provide career growth opportunities for team members
• Foster and maintain effective communication channels with your team members, stakeholders, and leadership.
• Monitor and improve the performance, scalability, and reliability of our search infrastructure

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience
• At least 7 years of experience in software engineering, with a focus on building well-designed architecture, shipping robust code and contributing to a positive team environment
• Experience with search technologies such as ElasticSearch, Solr or Lucene.
• Demonstrated success in being part of a team problem-solving, designing and implementing software at scale
• Mentorship experience & a desire to help your fellow engineers get better at what they do
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with experience presenting and explaining complex technical ideas to peers and leadership
• Biased towards action, with experience delivering high-quality software solutions on time, at scale and within budget.

Preferred Qualifications

• Solid understanding of applied machine learning techniques, such as supervised and unsupervised learning, deep learning, and natural language processing.
• Experience with search relevance tuning, query optimization, and ranking algorithms that incorporate applied machine learning techniques.
• Experience with: ElasticSearch, Java, Kubernetes, AWS

The hiring range for this position in Santa Monica, CA is $149300- $200200, and NYC $156300- $209600, and San Francisco $163500- $219200. 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.