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Senior Database Engineer

Apply Now Apply Later Job ID 10093163 Location Seattle, Washington, United States / Bristol, Connecticut, United States / Burbank, California, United States / Glendale, California, United States / San Francisco, California, United States / New York, New York, United States Business Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology Date posted Aug. 22, 2024

Job Summary:

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.

Engineering Services designs, builds, and sustains technology that powers DE&E Technology’s worldwide content production and distribution platforms. In doing so, they contribute to a series of cross-functional services and technologies, including Quality Assurance, Data Analytics, Software Development, Broadcast Infrastructure, and Networking & Security. 

Job Summary:

The individual in this position will join the Data Stores team in an exciting and fast-paced environment where they will help build and maintain highly available NoSQL database systems operating across multiple cloud and on-premise data centers.  These systems help to power some of DE&ET’s largest consumer facing systems including fantasy games, personalization, and messaging. 

We’re looking for an individual who can apply software engineering principles to database engineering and administration to build processes and automation to help deliver infrastructure faster, safer, more consistently and with the right level of observability required to operate at scale.

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

  • Responsible for building, deploying, and ensuring all DE&ET database infrastructure is available 24/7/365.

  • Leverage software development and automation to design, modernize, and deliver database infrastructure.

  • Participates in setting the architectural direction for database platforms and projects.

  • Manage multiple competing priorities in a fast-paced, deadline-oriented environment.

  • Analyze, design, and deploy fault-tolerant, distributed, and highly available database infrastructure.

  • Proactively plan and implement infrastructure changes through capacity forecasting, software release cycles, and right sizing.

  • Provide database expertise through performance tuning, troubleshooting and administration.

  • Develop, enhance, and adhere to engineering and administration standards.

  • Develop automation and tooling to increase operational efficiency while ensuring system reliability and security.

  • Build infrastructure and systems for scalability, resiliency, availability, and recovery though infrastructure as code and configuration management.

  • Provide relevant insights of data store infrastructure through metrics, monitoring, and alerting.

  • Maintain thorough and well-written documentation.

  • Participate in live event support and on-call rotation.

  • May provide oversight and direction to junior team members.

  • Builds relationships with engineering teams and leads.

Basic Qualifications:

  • 5+ years of relevant work experience.

  • 5+ years of related work experience with NoSQL database systems such as Cassandra, MongoDB, Redis, DocumentDB, and DynamoDB.

  • Fundamental understanding of database internals for at least one of the above database engines.

  • Experience working in Agile software development.

  • Experience with source control management tools (Git, GitLab, GitHub).

  • Intermediate to advanced level of expertise in one or more programming languages such as Python, Java, or Go.

  • Experience running, deploying, and maintaining production cloud infrastructure in Amazon Web Services.

  • General understanding and experience with Linux operating system, network, and containers.

  • Experience with infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation).

  • Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

  • Experience designing and deploying fault-tolerant, distributed, and highly available database infrastructure.

  • Experience with disaster recovery planning and implementation.

  • Carries out assignments with little coaching or guidance from others.

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Experience operating within a database reliability engineering (DRE) and/or systems reliability engineering (SRE) role.

  • Experience building a proper path to production leveraging multiple lifecycles, testing, integration, and CI/CD pipelines.

  • Experience running, deploying, and maintaining production cloud infrastructure in Azure and GCP.

  • Experience with configuration management (Ansible, Chef).

Required Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study.


The hiring range for this position in Bristol or Los Angeles is $145,000 to $162,000 per year, in New York City or Seattle is $160,000 to $170,000 per year, and in San Francisco is $170,000 to $175,000 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.

About Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology:

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Technology (DE&E Technology) provides the technological backbone and product development for Disney’s two media business units, while helping to keep the company at the vanguard of innovation – enabling the Company to continuously leverage technology to enhance storytelling and creativity, while delivering scalability, flexibility, and efficiency for its businesses.

About The Walt Disney Company:

The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise that includes three core business segments: Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and Disney Experiences. From humble beginnings as a cartoon studio in the 1920s to its preeminent name in the entertainment industry today, Disney proudly continues its legacy of creating world-class stories and experiences for every member of the family. Disney’s stories, characters and experiences reach consumers and guests from every corner of the globe. With operations in more than 40 countries, our employees and cast members work together to create entertainment experiences that are both universally and locally cherished.

This position is with Disney Streaming Technology LLC, which is part of a business we call Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology.

Disney Streaming Technology LLC is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, military or veteran status, medical condition, genetic information or disability, or any other basis prohibited by federal, state or local law. Disney champions a business environment where ideas and decisions from all people help us grow, innovate, create the best stories and be relevant in a constantly evolving world.

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