{"id":631594,"url":"https://alion.io/job/walt-disney-company-principal-software-engineer-2","title":"Principal Software Engineer","company":{"id":4283,"name":"Walt Disney Company","domain":"disney.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/walt-disney-company","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":87,"open_postings":90,"ghost_share":0.022,"stale_share":0.644,"repost_share":0.033,"time_to_fill_p50_days":19,"computed_at":"2026-10-31T05:58:55Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States","Morrisville, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":206400,"max":276700,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":276700},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Computer Vision","optional":false},{"name":"C++","optional":true},{"name":"Git","optional":true},{"name":"GitHub","optional":true},{"name":"GStreamer","optional":true},{"name":"Python","optional":true},{"name":"Rest API","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-06-15T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-06-15","last_verified_at":"2026-10-31T22:19:46Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":138,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":138},"description":"Job Posting Title:\nPrincipal Software EngineerReq ID:\n10149987Job Description:\nDisney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology\nTechnology 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.\nThe 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.\nHere are a few reasons why we think you’d love working here:\nBuilding 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.\nOur Team and Charter:\nThis role falls within the Core Media Technology (CMT) team in DEEP&T’s Media Engineering organization. CMT is one of our Research and Advanced Development teams whose focus is in the domain of video and audio processing that drives innovative enhancements into our video processing platform for live and on-demand video streaming delivery. Our work involves optimizing media processing, introducing new media codecs, developing quality and performance assessment frameworks and conducting innovative media R&D towards future platform capabilities for the purposes of achieving velocity, scale, and efficiency through an optimized media platform as well as redefining storytelling through innovative media experiences.\nJob Summary:\nYou will be focused on research and development for future generation image and video coding especially through the application of ML/AI methods.\nYou will participate and represent Disney at AOM and connect with academic research groups, conferences and other standard bodies such as MPEG, IETF, and VQEG.\nYou will be part of a team conducting innovative research and advanced development involving advanced computer vision algorithms and applied ML/AI techniques to address the tasks such as media enhancement, understanding, analysis, compression, and enhancing storytelling through innovative media experiences.\nYou will have the opportunity to conduct multidisciplinary research and implementation in video technologies, including video processing, encoding and E2E video streaming for both live and on-demand use cases.\nYou will have the opportunity to design video algorithms and software workflows for the purposes of achieving velocity, scale, and efficiency to further optimize our media platform.\nAs a domain focused Principal Engineer, you are expected to be a thought leader and technical domain expert both within and beyond the organization. You will be driving architectural innovation and significant IP generation both internally and at the standards level. You will be directly influencing our strategy and representing the organization in technical discussions. Your leadership is visionary and strategic. Your decisions are expected to shape our long-term strategy and product development with contributions critical to initiatives and innovation. You will be regularly working with senior leaders to drive major\ntechnical advancements. Your influence is global and enduring.\nOur CMT team is global, with resources from Zurich, Bangalore, throughout the US and in Beijing and coordination and collaboration across these is expected.\nRequired Education, Experience/Skills/Training:\nBasic Qualifications\nMinimum of 10 years of experience in related field\nDeep expertise in video coding standards such as AV1, AV2, AVC, HEVC, VVC\nStrong algorithm background for both traditional block based and emerging neural network based video coding tools\nA strong background in applying deep learning techniques to video processing tasks such as video enhancement, video understanding, video coding and analysis.\nA proven track record of IP generation\nIn-depth understanding and experience with multimedia stack (e.g. video formats, encoders/decoders, video playback/players), multimedia frameworks, and video coding/processing methods.\nA proven track record of success and demonstrable experience in research or advanced development in video coding / media processing or adjacent fields (video quality, computer vision, computer graphics)\nPreferred Qualifications\nKnowledge and experience withC/C++ and Python\nExtensive experiencein deploying and optimizing AI/ML models and frameworks, including state-of-the-art latent variable generative models and optimization for finite precision operations, is strongly preferred\nApplied knowledge of Media Metadata and Processing \nApplied knowledge of ABR algorithms and transport formats \nKnowledge of gStreamer Media Framework \nExperience with building web-apps/dashboards for data visualization\nExperience with working with Dockers\nWeb service development, REST APIs, XML/JSON\nRelease management, CD/CI tools, Git/GitHub\nHigh load, highly scalable and distributed applications\nRequired Education\nDegree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field with 10+ years of directly related industry experience in video codecs\nThe hiring range for this position in San Francisco, CA is $206,400 - $276,700 per year and in Morrisville, NC is $175,500 - $235,400 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.Job Posting Segment:\nPE - Media EngineeringJob Posting Primary Business:\nPE - Media Platform - Innovation & ResearchPrimary Job Posting Category:\nSoftware EngineerEmployment Type:\nFull timePrimary City, State, Region, Postal Code:\nSan Francisco, CA, USAAlternate City, State, Region, Postal Code:\nUSA - NC - 3005 Carrington Mill BlvdDate Posted:\n2026-06-15","description_format":"text","description_chars":6935,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Film Production","Animation","Theme Parks & Attractions","Streaming & OTT Platforms"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-10T19:22:11Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":5,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.194,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":138,"expected_fill_days":19,"reasons":["conf:1","stale_co","velocity","win:tail","crowd:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-31T05:58:55Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":276700,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/walt-disney-company-principal-software-engineer-2","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/walt-disney-company-principal-software-engineer-2.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-31T23:43:06Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":37181,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-01T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":4283},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=4283"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fwalt-disney-company-principal-software-engineer-2"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fwalt-disney-company-principal-software-engineer-2"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fwalt-disney-company-principal-software-engineer-2"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/walt-disney-company-principal-software-engineer-2\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fwalt-disney-company-principal-software-engineer-2"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":631594}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"disney.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":631594},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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