Principal Data Engineer

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.

Ad Platforms is responsible for Disney’s industry-leading ad technology and products – driving advertising performance, innovation, and value in Disney’s sports, news, and entertainment content, across all media platforms.

Job Summary:

As Principal Data Engineer for Marketing and Consumer Data, you will serve as the senior technical leader for Identity and Device data products — including Identity360 and related consumer identifier datasets — that underpin marketing measurement, activation, and analytics across Disney Entertainment & ESPN. You will define technical direction, drive complex cross-system initiatives, establish engineering standards, and mentor leads and senior engineers, while partnering with onshore squad leaders, product, and enterprise architecture to deliver reliable batch and near-real-time data at petabyte scale.

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

• Define and drive technical strategy for Identity & Device data products within Marketing and Consumer Data — including pipeline architecture, platform patterns, and modernization roadmap in partnership with onshore squad leaders and enterprise architecture.
• Lead end-to-end delivery of complex, high-impact initiatives across Identity360, device/consumer identifier datasets, and dependent Marketing data products — setting technical approach, sequencing, and quality bar for other engineers.
• Serve as principal SME and escalation point for identity foundational data — data modeling, batch and near-real-time processing, performance at scale, and production reliability — including participation in on-call rotation and incident leadership for critical pipelines.
• Establish and uphold engineering standards for the Identity & Device team and Marketing Data Engineering — code quality, CI/CD, observability, data governance (GDPR, RTBF, CCPA), and reusable platform patterns across Databricks, AWS, and orchestration tooling.
• Mentor and develop engineers through design reviews, pairing, and coaching — building depth in big-data engineering, identity domain knowledge, and operational excellence.
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, QA, Operations, Privacy/Legal, and peer Marketing data squads (Data Collection, Activation, Acquisition) to align requirements, resolve cross-domain dependencies, and represent Bangalore technical decisions to stakeholders.

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

Basic Qualifications

• 10+ years of related big data engineering experience modeling and developing large data pipelines and experience with Python, Scala, or Java; strong AWS fundamentals (S3, Lambda, IAM) preferred.
• 5+ years hands-on experience including performance tuning at scale with distributed systems such as Hadoop or Databricks compute using tools/libraries such as Spark, Presto, Hive to query and process large datasets at the petabyte level.
• Experience with at least one major MPP or cloud database technology (Snowflake, Redshift, Big Query, Databricks)
• Solid understanding of Data Modeling techniques and Data Warehousing standard methodologies and practices
• Operational experience in multi-system/services production environment as senior data engineer and point-of-contact / SME
• Problem solving skills with strong attention to detail and excellent analytical and communication skills
• Solid experience with data integration and orchestration toolsets (e.g. Airflow), CI/CD
• Demonstrated ability with cloud infrastructure technologies, including Terraform.
• Strong understanding of slowly changing dimensions (SCD tables) and how to build scalable and performant datasets.

Required Education 

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience

PAY TRANSPARENCY

The hiring range for this position in SFO, CA is $187,900 - $252,000 per year and New York is $179,700 - $241,000 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.

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

To learn more about Disney's guidelines on the use of AI for candidates, click here.

Disney Entertainment & Sports 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. 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.