Sr Content Distribution Engineer

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. 

• 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. 

Department/Group Overview:

Media Engineering is an innovative organization that is passionate about providing the best possible video playback experience, art, and metadata to customers worldwide, powered by exceptional technology. This work requires streamlining and repurposing technology across different business and distribution channels – including streaming, linear, and theatrical – so that technology can ebb and flow across the needs of the business. 

The Senior Content Distribution Engineer specializes in caching technology, distributed networking, and operational experience in CDN edge services. This role will join the Media Engineering organization as part of the Distribution Engineering team which develops and maintains CDN configurations for all CDNs in the Disney Distribution Mesh.

Areas of focus include:

• Configure and manage CDN configurations in the Disney Distribution Mesh

• Actively manage OpenCache deployments with ISPs globally

• Actively review performance metrics across our caching infrastructure for improvements (in concert with operations and performance management teams)

• Review capacity and ensure alignment with global distribution strategy

• Oversee Day-to-Day operations of Disney Distribution Mesh

• Participate in tooling development to integrate 3rd party CDNs into unified control plane

• Operational Management Contact for CDN support – actively managing incidents via communication with CDN support teams

• Identifying areas for caching configuration tuning and adjustment

• Work to solve caching issues in concert with our operations and engineering organizations

• Provide consultation on caching solutions to internal stakeholders

• Provide senior tier-3 on call evaluation, escalation and support

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

% of Time

Focus on operations & management of cache solutions 40%

Support product driven initiatives and projects 20%

Develop engineering tooling and automation 20%

Training & mentoring 20%

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

• BS in Computer Science is required

• Minimum of 5 years of experience managing caching solutions, preferably in a Content Distribution Network environment

• Experience in Content Distribution Network operations environments

• Expert knowledge of CDN Provider architectures and configurations

• Understanding of streaming video protocols (HLS) and how it interacts with caching

• Ability to perform Network Troubleshooting

• Knowledge of video players and impact on cache logic

• Knowledge of following:

  • HTTP/DNS/Internet Architecture

  • Caching (Varnish)

  • Web Serving (NGINX, HAProxy)

  • Cloud Technologies (AWS, GCP)

  • Scripting Languages (Python, et al)

  • Security Protocols (SSL Certificates, TLS)

  • Configuration Management (Ansible, AWX)

• Effective communication, written and verbal

• Passion for troubleshooting and debugging

The hiring range for this position in New York is $107,400 - $144,000 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.