Lead Full Stack Software Engineer

Disney Advertising
Lead Full Stack Software Engineer (aka Sr. Software Engineer)
Glendale or Seattle in-office (1-2 days remote/wk.) ( Onsite 3-4 days)
9 month contract w/likely extension(s) **can go up to 24 months at max**
W2 Contract role - or USC
Position Summary:
As a Lead Software Engineer, Full Stack, you will provide hands-on technical leadership for the video and image asset processing team. This team supports the ingestion, transcoding orchestration, metadata storage, and asset review applications used for video and display advertising across Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+.

You will lead medium- to large-scale features from design through production, influence architecture within the team's domain, mentor engineers, and partner with Product, Design, Quality Assurance, and engineering teams to deliver reliable, scalable
solutions for advertising asset management and processing.

Must-Haves

1.) Minimum 4-5 years in software engineering
2.) Proficient in Java and/or Spring, and object-relational mapping frameworks
3.) Versed in React or a comparable front-end framework
4.) Strong with relational databases such as MySQL or PostgreSQL.

Nice-to-Haves

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
Experience with Spring Boot and related Spring projects.
Experience with a cloud platform such as AWS.
Experience with modern DevOps technologies, including Terraform, Docker, and Kubernetes.
Experience with data-streaming and messaging technologies such as Apache Kafka, Amazon Kinesis, and Amazon SNS/SQS.
Knowledge of the advertising technology industry.
Experience using AI-assisted development tools and agents, such as Cursor or Amazon Q Developer.

Responsibilities

Design, develop, test, and maintain full-stack software solutions, including backend services and user-facing web applications that support advertising asset workflows. Own medium- to large-scale features and technical initiatives from design through production, with an emphasis on
scalability, reliability, and maintainability. Contribute to and influence service- and system-level architecture decisions within the team's domain. Write high-quality, production-ready code and participate actively in code reviews, design reviews, and technical
discussions.

Collaborate with Product Managers, UX Designers, Quality Assurance, and partner engineering teams to translate
requirements into effective technical solutions. Improve observability, performance, resiliency, and on-call readiness for owned services. Mentor engineers through technical guidance,constructive feedback, and knowledge sharing. Participate in incident response and root-cause analysis for production issues within owned systems.

Technical Knowledge and Competencies
Strong understanding of modern full-stack architectures, including client-server communication, RESTful APIs, and
distributed backend systems. Working knowledge of cloud-native development concepts, including stateless services, horizontal scaling, and service observability. Proficiency in backend technologies such as Java, Kotlin, or Python and modern frontend technologies such as React and TypeScript. Experience building and consuming REST and/or GraphQL APIs. Strong SQL skills and experience with relational and/or NoSQL databases.

Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines, containerized deployments, and cloud services. Ability to assess downstream impacts of technical decisions across interconnected systems. Ability to break down ambiguous or complex problems into clear, actionable technical work. Familiarity with advertising technology or media-processing workflows, including asset ingestion, metadata management, and review pipelines, is a plus. Communication, Collaboration & Problem Solving
Communicate clearly and effectively with
technical and nontechnical partners.

Contribute constructively to technical debates
and design discussions. Proactively identify and communicate risks,
tradeoffs, and blockers. Provide timely, respectful feedback and
incorporate feedback from others. Work effectively across Engineering, Product,
Design, and Quality Assurance functions. Solve medium- to high-complexity technical
problems with limited guidance. Exercise sound engineering judgment when
selecting designs, tools, and implementation approaches. Identify opportunities to improve quality,
performance, resiliency, and developer experience.

Deliver results independently while
coordinating effectively within a team.