Senior Gameplay Engineer

Job ID Location Burbank, California, United States Business The Walt Disney Studios Date posted Dec. 20, 2025

This is not a remote role. You must be in the local area or be willing to relocate.

About the Role

The Office of Technology Enablement (OTE), a division of The Walt Disney Company, is embarking on a mission to build the future of XR experiences across all Disney segments.

Working with top-class industry talent, this role is perfect for the accomplished game engineer looking to create something magical – from focused R&D projects to working with different business units on new ways to experience the characters and stories you love.

OTE is looking for a uniquely talented Senior Gameplay Engineer to join us on this ambitious and exciting initiative. If you are an experienced game programmer with a love of Disney properties, you'll want to check out this opportunity

This role will report to the Director of Development.

What you Will Do:

• Leverage your knowledge to help implement a collection of interactive experiences based on Disney's robust portfolio of characters and worlds.

• Be an active, hands-on participant in the process, directly writing code and working daily with design/production/art to establish and achieve goals for each interactive experience.

• A significant portion of this work will involve implementation using Unreal. This role will require a willingness and ability to operate within the limitations of that ecosystem and grow with it as the functionality matures.

• Empower designers by serving as their main support avenue during the development process.

• Find creative ways to overcome hardware limitations, maintaining a positive outlook along the way.

• Work closely with other members of the engineering and creative teams to ensure that implementation quality is maintained. Be an advocate of stability and flexibility.

• Champion Disney and team values. Maintain a 'guest-first' mentality by being an advocate for the audience experience.

• Serve as a key team member of a growing XR development team at Disney.

Required Qualifications & Skills

• 5 years of experience developing console/PC/mobile games or other digital interactiveentertainment.

• Experience with Unreal Engine 4/5+ at the native (C++) level.

• Participated in the creation and release of a commercial product, in a hands-on programmingrole. Was one of the main authors of a major gameplay system.

• Served as a programmer during the prototype phase of a project. Understands the difference in requirements/goals between prototyping and production.

• Understands and implements the following concepts at a production-quality:

• C++ code (Performance Impact, Memory Management, Inheritance, etc.)

• Client/Server architecture (Replication, Client-side Prediction, Movement Syncing, etc.)

• Game Mathematics (Linear Algebra, Vector Math, Kinematic Physics, Collision, etc.)

• Ability to guide engineers.

• A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Shipped products for Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest or other VR Platforms.

• Graphics Programming, Mobile experience, and familiarity with Online Services are all bonuses.

• Experience with developing and publishing Unreal content.

• Has a broad understanding of XR experiences and the various devices that are available on the market

The hiring range for this position in Burbank, CA is $141,900.00-$190,300.00 per year. The base pay actually offered will take into