Lead Software Engineer

Job Requirements

About the Role & Team

Disney Experiences (DXT) Technology & Digital creates world-class immersive digital experiences for the Company’s premier vacation brands including Disney’s Parks & Resorts worldwide, Disney Cruise Line, Aulani: A Disney Resort & Spa, and Disney Vacation Club. We are responsible for the end-to-end digital and physical Guest experience for all technology & digital-led initiatives across the Attractions & Entertainment, Food & Beverage, Resorts & Transportation and Merchandise lines of business as well as other initiatives including My Disney Experience and Hey Disney!

The Lead Software Engineer will have responsibilities within the Disney Experiences (DXT) team that manages technical delivery for products within the Connected Products team across all DX. As Lead, they own multi-system outcomes, set technical direction, arbitrate tradeoffs across teams, and drive delivery when priorities conflict. The Lead Software Engineer will be contributing to a core platform with real-world impact, operating at scale, and solving technically hard problems that span edge systems, cloud infrastructure, and real-time data processing. This is a hands-on lead role: you will be expected to write production code, drive architecture, lead delivery across teams, and own operational outcomes for critical platform components. Success in this role requires ownership of roadmap-to-delivery for a portfolio, aligning multiple teams, unblocking org-level issues and raising the bar on architecture and operational standards.

Job Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and operate real-time, event-driven systems that ingest and process data from edge devices

• Develop backend services and streaming pipelines using Java and Apache Flinkto transform data into reliable, consumable events, managing Guest media and identity reconsiliation

• Architect and operate production systems on AWS, with a strong focus on scalability, cost efficiency, observability, and fault tolerance

• Lead end‑to‑end delivery for multiple systems, balancing domain goals, technical constraints, and priorities to deliver impactful features

• Lead technical decisions, drive system design, and act as an owner for critical components of the platform

• Build clean, versioned event schemas and APIs that integrate with downstream consumers and external systems

• Independently act as technical liaison and team representative with high autonomy

• Comfortable mentoring junior developers and presenting to executive audiences

• Engage in the estimation and planning of sophisticated scalable projects

• This position may require occasional travel, estimated at 10–15%

Basic Qualifications:

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with experience in distributed, production systems

• 3+ years of repeated cross-team technical leadership, end-to-end ownership of multi-service initiatives, and driving architecture decisions that others implement at scale

• Leads through technical influence, not direct people management.

• Expertise building real-time or streaming data pipelines (event ingestion, aggregation, windowing, and emission) with technologies like AWS IoT Core, Kinesis, Kafka, and MQTT .

• Expert-level proficiency in Java

• Deep hands-on experience with AWS (e.g., ECS/EKS, Lambda, DynamoDB, S3, CloudWatch, Timestream/InfluxDB)

• Strong understanding of event-driven architecture, schema evolution, and downstream consumer integration

• Proven ability to design and deliver systems that are observable, resilient, and scalable

• You will be expected to stay up to date with emerging technologies so you can make informed recommendations

Strongly Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience integrating IoT, edge, or computer-vision-adjacent systems into cloud platforms

• Operating high-visibility systems with strict performance and reliability expectations

• Experience with stream processing frameworks or high-throughput messaging systems

• Building systems that handle sensitive or privacy-relevant data, with strong security and access controls

Required Education:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field -or-

• 13+ years of equivalent relevant experience

Disclaimer

PAY TRANSPARENCY

The hiring range for this position in Bay Lake, FL is $150,500 to $201,800 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.

This position is with Walt Disney Attractions Technology LLC, which is part of a business we call Disney Experiences.

To learn more about Disney's guidelines on the use of AI for candidates, click here. (https://join.disneycareers.com/global/en/ai-usage)

Walt Disney Attractions Technology LLC is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or protected veteran status. 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.

DISABILITY ACCOMMODATION FOR EMPLOYMENT APPLICATIONS

The Walt Disney Company and its Affiliated Companies are Equal Employment Opportunity employers and welcome all job seekers including individuals with disabilities and veterans with disabilities. If you have a disability and believe you need a reasonable accommodation in order to search for a job opening or apply for a position, visit the Disney candidate disability accommodations FAQs (https://support.disneycareers.com/hc/en-us/sections/32131060143380-Candidate-Disability-Accommodations-FAQs) . We will only respond to those requests that are related to the accessibility of the online application system due to a disability.

Having technical issues? View the FAQs for help. (https://support.disneycareers.com/hc/en-us)

The Walt Disney Company and its Affiliated Companies are Equal Employment Opportunity employers and welcome all job seekers including individuals with disabilities and veterans with disabilities. If you have a disability and believe you need a reasonable accommodation in order to search for a job opening or apply for a position, email [email protected] with your request. This email address is not for general employment inquiries or correspondence. We will only respond to those requests that are related to the accessibility of the online application system due to a disability.