Lead Software Engineer - Swift

Company: Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Techno
Location: Glendale
Posted on: February 2, 2026

Job Description:

Job Description About the Business 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: - 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. - 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. - 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. The Apple Application Player Engineering team builds the software and systems that provide the best possible playback experience to our viewers. Job Summary: The Apple Application Player Engineering team is seeking someone who can fill the role of Lead Software Engineer to create a feature rich standard streaming media playback library on Apple devices. Our intention is to design and develop a layered architecture for media playback which can span all the Disney direct-to-consumer brands like Disney, ESPN, and Hulu. Your focus will be on collaborating with media playback teams on other platforms to ensure a consistent software architecture which delivers a best-in-class streaming experience for your viewers while providing a foundation for media playback innovation at Disney. This is a hands-on engineering position for the Apple Ecosystem in Objective-C/SWIFT. Based on your experience, you will work with a cross-functional team of Product Managers, Designers, Engineers, Web Developers, and Content Creators to conceptualize and develop solutions that are shared across all Disney experiences. You are a person who enjoys working with other teams and technologies to understand their constraints. You enjoy the challenges presented by difficult problems and take pride in finding solutions which successfully thread the needle between design constraints, technical constraints, and the end experience of your users. You foster trust, approach problems with empathy and respect, and embrace creativity. Responsibilities: - Design and implement solutions in collaboration with team members for new features which integrate with various Disney media services and back-ends. - Collaborative API design with peer teams on the back-end as well as front-end teams which depend on our libraries. - Research and development for media playback experiences, integration, and testing. - Participate in project estimation and resource planning. - Ability to collaborate in a small, productive development team as well as the larger engineering organization. - Troubleshoot and resolve issues, problems, and errors encountered across our various platforms. - Ability to collaborate within a small, productive development team as well as work independently. Basic Qualifications: - Minimum of 7 years of relevant software engineering experience - Bachelor’s or Master's Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study and/or equivalent work experience - Able to demonstrate experience in the full lifecycle of software development. Early stage, maintenance, and end of life. - Experience in Swift or SwiftUI - Knowledgeable with programming paradigms including Object Oriented and Reactive. - Understanding of iOS/TVOS app development lifecycle. - Experience in Object Oriented Programming. - Write efficient, reliable, and maintainable code whether implementing improvements, user-facing features, or fixing defects – through collaboration with senior team members. - Experience with unit test frameworks and continuous integration systems - Strong verbal and written communication skills - Motivated self-starter with the ability to learn and adapt to new technologies. Preferred Qualifications: - Experience with AVFoundation and its ecosystem - Experience with streaming technologies including HLS, MPEG-DASH, Transport Stream, and CMAF - Experience developing applications in all Apple platforms including iPhone, iPad, and TVOS. DISNEYTECH The hiring range for this position in Los Angeles, CA is $155,700 to $208,700 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.

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