Lead Product Software Engineer - Data Systems

The Walt Disney Company

Remote

Quick summary

Work type: Remote
Location: Remote
Salary: $155,700–$208,700 / yr
Posted: 2 days ago
Closes: Dec 31, 2026

Market check

Salary context

Competitive pay

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $179k

This role $182k

$139k most similar roles pay here $219k

This role pays less than 52% of similar roles. Most pay $146,437–$211,200 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $182k versus about $179k for comparable roles.

Based on 240 similar postings.

Employer

About The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company is a diversified global entertainment and media enterprise operating in segments including Disney Parks, Experiences and Products; Entertainment (ABC, Hulu, Disney+); and ESPN. Industry: Entertainment & Media

The Walt Disney Company currently has 183 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $148,300–$198,800 across 179 roles with salary data.

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View all roles at The Walt Disney Company

At a glance

TL;DR · Lead Product Software Engineer - Data Systems

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As a Lead Product Software Engineer at ESPN’s Data Systems team, you will lead the development of a real-time short-form video recommendation system that forms the backbone of next-generation personalization experiences. Your day-to-day responsibilities include designing and building scalable distributed systems, developing data processing platforms, and creating foundational platform capabilities such as feature serving and model inference integration. You will work closely with cross-functional teams to establish engineering standards and drive technical strategy for high-availability services. The role requires expertise in modern data processing frameworks like Spark and Flink, proficiency in Python or Java, and experience with cloud platforms like AWS. Ideal candidates have a background in building data infrastructure for personalization systems and familiarity with MLOps tools such as MLflow and Kubeflow.

Skills

Python Java Scala Spark Kafka Flink Snowflake Databricks Apache Airflow AWS Kubernetes SQL MLflow TFX dbt CI/CD

What you'll do

Design and build highly scalable software systems for content discovery and personalization.
Develop distributed data processing platforms to support online and offline product workflows.
Build foundational platform capabilities including feature serving and recommendation delivery services.
Lead architecture efforts ensuring high availability, low latency, and scalability in system design.
Establish engineering standards and best practices for monitoring and reliability across critical systems.
Drive technical strategy and execution for next-generation personalization platforms and services.

What we're looking for

7+ years of experience building and maintaining production-grade data pipelines and distributed systems.
Expertise in modern data processing frameworks like Spark, Flink, Kafka Streams, and cloud platforms such as AWS.
Strong proficiency with SQL, schema design for large-scale datasets, and hands-on experience with Databricks, Snowflake, Apache Airflow.
Experience supporting ML workflows including model training pipelines, feature engineering, and data validation.
Solid software engineering skills in Python, Java, Scala or similar languages, and strong problem-solving abilities.

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