Software Engineering Intern, Summer 2026

About the Role & Program:

The Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology (DE&ET) organization plays a central role in the future growth of The Walt Disney Company. Our team is responsible for worldwide linear and digital media distribution, design and development of all consumer-facing digital products, advertising technology, consumer data, and international broadcast operations. Our employees are leading, creating, and innovating, making bold moves in unexpected directions that redefine not just what a media company does, but what it can do. With The Walt Disney Company, you can be part of media's evolution, helping us create what's next. 

Be a part of an innovative team and culture…  

This role falls within the Core Media Technology (CMT) team in DE&ET’s Media Engineering organization. CMT is one of our Research and Advanced Development teams whose focus is in the domain of video and audio processing that drives enhancements into our video processing platform for live and on-demand video streaming delivery. Our work involves optimizing media encoding, introducing new media codecs, developing video quality and performance assessment frameworks and conducting innovative media research towards the development of future platform capabilities. 

What You Will Do:

Throughout this internship, you will have the opportunity to work collaboratively within the CMT team contributing to one or more of our active research and advanced development projects. At any given time, you may find yourself:  

• Contributing to one of our advanced media ML/AI processing projects  

• Developing python-based scripts to drive media analysis  

• Developing web-apps/dashboards for data visualization  

• Contributing to subjective experiments evaluating video quality  

• Testing and evaluating new video codecs 

Required Qualifications & Skills:

• Knowledge and experience in Python  

• Understanding or experience with Linux

• Strong communication skills, both verbal and written

• Proficiency in data analysis and analytical thinking

• Strong ability to multi-task and context-switch with ease in a fast-paced, and ever-evolving organization

Preferred Qualifications & Skills:

• Experience developing and optimizing AI/ML models and frameworks 

• Knowledge and experience with Python libraries such as pandas/NumPy for data analysis and matplotlib/plotly for visualization 

• Video encoding and codec (e.g. H264, H265, AV1) experience 

• Experience with data visualization and analysis 

• Experience with building web-apps/dashboards for data visualization 

• Experience with working with Dockers 

Education:

• Junior or Senior year preferred

• Currently enrolled undergraduate student in an accredited college/university, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Computer Graphics Technology/Visualization or related field.

 Eligibility Requirements & Program Information

Candidates for this opportunity MUST meet all of the below requirements:

• Be enrolled in an accredited college/university pursuing a degree taking at least one class in the semester/quarter (spring/fall) prior to participation in the internship program AND returning to school the semester/quarter following the internship OR currently participating in a Disney College Program or Disney Internship.

• Current Disney Interns, College, International, or Culinary Program Participants:  You may only work for ONE consecutive year (12 months) in any combination of an internship and/or program.  

• Be at least 18 years of age

• Possess unrestricted work authorization

Additional Information  

• Fully available from M-F, 40 hours each week for the entire program duration: May/June - August/September 2026 (12 weeks)

• Available for one evening meeting weekly with our extended Beijing team (typically 8-9pm ET Mondays) 

• Able to provide own housing for the duration internship program in San Francisco, CA or Morrisville, NC  

• Able to provide/have reliable transportation to/from work