Senior Principal Software Engineer

The Walt Disney Company

Confirmed live today High trust

Hybrid

Quick summary

Work type: Hybrid
Location: Seattle, WASan Francisco, CANew York, NY
Salary: $239,700–$321,400 / yr
Posted: 2 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live today
Closes: Mar 31, 2027
Nearby: 99+ roles within 25 mi

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $200k

This role $281k

$122k most similar roles pay here $343k

This role pays more than 93% of similar roles. Most pay $174,050–$225,500 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $281k versus about $200k 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 119 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $148,300–$198,800 across 119 roles with salary data.

Most-posted roles

View all roles at The Walt Disney Company

At a glance

TL;DR · Senior Principal Software Engineer

Role Posting Log in to save

Sr Principal Software Engineer As a Sr Principal Software Engineer within the Reliability Engineering organization, you will join the Product Engineering team to design and evolve the foundational platform services layer for Disney’s streaming products, including Disney+, ESPN, and Hulu. You will serve as an executive-level individual contributor responsible for the technical vision of core infrastructure components such as API gateways, service-to-service authentication, rate limiting, distributed tracing, and observability. Your daily work involves writing production-grade code for shared libraries, SDKs, and golden path templates to improve engineering velocity across hundreds of teams. You will leverage expertise in distributed systems, zero-trust networking, and identity federation to solve complex scalability challenges. Additionally, you will build AI-ready infrastructure supporting inference routing and model telemetry while mentoring senior engineers and collaborating with leadership to align platform strategy with global product goals.

What does a Software Engineer earn in Washington?

Median $205525 from 288 postings across 29 companies.

See salary data

Skills

Distributed Systems API Gateway Service Mesh Kinesis Circuit Breaking Rate Limiting Load Shedding Distributed Tracing Observability SRE Identity Federation zero‑trust SDKs CLI Tools

What you'll do

Design and implement the technical architecture for core platform services including API gateways, authentication, and rate limiting.
Develop production-grade shared libraries, SDKs, and "golden path" templates to standardize development across 400+ engineering teams.
Create architectural decision records and technical documentation to establish durable standards for distributed systems and infrastructure.
Lead deep technical investigations into complex production issues involving cross-service performance bottlenecks and resiliency gaps.
Build AI-ready infrastructure components such as inference routing, model telemetry, and experiment tracking for ML workloads.
Evaluate build-versus-buy decisions through prototyping, cost modeling, and risk assessment to determine long-term platform strategy.
Mentor senior engineers through code reviews, design critiques, and architecture partnerships to build the next generation of technical leaders.
Communicate platform strategy and technical trade-offs to executive leadership to align infrastructure with business goals.

What we're looking for

Must have at least 12 years of software engineering experience.
Must have at least 5 years of experience in a Staff or Principal level individual contributor role owning large-scale systems.
Must have direct experience designing, building, and operating platform services in an organization of over 1,000 engineers.
Must possess deep expertise in distributed systems including API gateways, service mesh, tracing, observability, rate limiting, and circuit breaking.
Must have hands-on experience with service-to-service authentication, zero-trust networking, and identity federation at scale.
Must be able to communicate technical architecture and platform strategy to Directors and VPs to influence business outcomes.
Must have experience leading build-versus-buy decisions including prototyping, vendor evaluation, and long-term ownership considerations.
A Bachelor's degree or higher is required.

Save