Senior SDET - Backend

Disney Entertainment & ESPN Product & Technology

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 Disney Entertainment & ESPN Product & Technology team is seeking a Lead Software Development Engineer in Test to join our Product Engineering team. This role involves building test automation and processes to ensure the quality of our advertising systems. Properly functioning systems reliably deliver relevant ads to our viewers, driving higher revenue and helping customers discover relevant brands and products. Defects in our ad systems can negatively impact revenue and viewer experience due to irrelevance and repetition. This is a unique opportunity to impact the QE and automation process and culture, as well as the products we release. The ideal candidate will also have expertise in data validation, ensuring the integrity and accuracy of data used in system testing and automation, along with solid experience in data analytics, data engineering, data modeling, data warehousing, and big data platforms.

Responsibilites

• Work closely with Software Engineers to understand the complex advertising ecosystem at DMED Technology.
• Develop automated test frameworks and suites for API, UI, Integration, and data validation levels using Python.
• Participate in design discussions to evolve the platform, enabling richer testing scenarios and simplifying defect detection and prevention.
• Assist with triage, diagnosis, and resolution of issues discovered across teams.
• Contribute to end-to-end acceptance tests.
• Develop and execute manual test cases when automated testing is not feasible.
• Leverage experience in data analytics, data engineering, data modeling, and data warehousing to enhance testing strategies and improve data quality throughout the development lifecycle.
• Work with big data platforms to validate large-scale data sets, ensuring they meet the testing and business requirements.
• Drive the conversion of manual tests to automated tests whenever possible.
• Monitor and validate data used in test scenarios to ensure it accurately represents real-world conditions.
• Work collaboratively with data engineers and other stakeholders to develop processes for improving data quality and ensuring its consistency across testing environments.
• Implement test automation for data validation to increase the efficiency and reliability of testing processes.
  
  

Basic Qualifications

• 5+ year of relevant experience
• BS/BA or equivalent work experience
• Technical Skills: Proficient in Python or similar object-oriented languages, automation tools (e.g., Selenium, JUnit), data engineering, SQL, and big data technologies (e.g., Spark, Hadoop).
• Testing Experience: Proven experience in automated testing (API, UI, integration, data validation), ETL/data accuracy validation, and end-to-end acceptance testing.
• Problem-Solving: Strong diagnostic skills for data processing and system integration issues; familiarity with CI/CD tools.
• Collaboration: Excellent cross-team collaboration, communication, and documentation skills.
  
  

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with AWS or cloud platforms, Agile methodologies, machine learning, and data privacy best practices.

Preferred Education

• BS/MS Computer Science or similar
  
  

The hiring range for this position in Santa Monica, CA and Glendale, CA is $141,900 to $190,300 per year and in Seattle, WA is $148,700 to $199,400 per year and in San Francisco, CA is $152,100 to $203,900 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.