There's very little Disney interview content on this forum, and the interview format depends entirely on the hiring manager for each team, so it's almost completely different from team to team. Just treat this as a rough reference. I interviewed with Disney's Experience division, which supposedly is a lot easier than the Streaming side.
The title was Sr Data Engineer.
Mid-August: applied through Workday, mass-applying.
End of August, recruiter call: resume screen, tech stack check, tool check, a few simple cloud questions, work authorization confirmation (no sponsorship), pay range, location.
Early September, tech round (Tech lead + 2 Sr): data pipeline design on cloud, with a very detailed deep dive into tradeoffs, packages and tools. Then they asked a few tech questions, like how I would prompt an LLM to migrate an entire codebase from Java to Python, how I would prompt it to clean a database with tens of thousands of rows, how to make sure of data quality and security, how to deal with sensitive data, and so on. When we finished the tech lead said "enjoy the chat".
Mid-September, HM round (HM + Tech Lead): insanely easy Python + SQL, not even LC Easy level, anyone who knows English could basically write it out. Then a small batch of tech questions and a big batch of BQ. We chatted for a while, and they asked why I worked as a SWE for a few years and then switched to DE, and asked about the research and other stuff on my resume.
End of September, onsite (1v6 panel: Sr Manager + manager + Tech lead + 2 Sr + PM):
Another round of pipeline design, this time a hybrid environment, not just on cloud, again with very detailed tradeoffs/packages/tools. I've worked with both AWS and Azure, so they had me design the whole thing in each, with different tools, different environments, local and cloud, etc. Then a big batch of Python OOP questions, and some questions about TypeScript and Angular (since I listed them on my resume). This part felt like a proper design session, not something the team actually works on, they just used the interview to have me design something.
Then a whole hour of BQ (conflict, critical feedback, priority, etc.). By the end I really couldn't come up with any more stories and just made stuff up.
Then a whole pile of "personal questions", which they said was a team culture fit check. They told me I didn't need to talk about anything work-related, and that I could skip anything that made me uncomfortable. For example: what event in my life changed me the most, which boss I liked best, which boss or job I liked least, what subject or professor I hated most, basically just chatting.
The whole panel lasted two and a half hours or so, and my throat was hoarse from talking. I felt the atmosphere was pretty good, everyone was very chill, and the tech lead was very supportive and gave hints.
Two days after the interview I saw the news about Disney layoffs and had a bad feeling, and sure enough yesterday I got an email from the recruiter saying "good feedback, but there has been a change within the organization, and as a result, this position has been put on hold".
Too bad I didn't get the chance to join this time. Everything on Blind is people bashing Disney, but I really felt this team was very chill, and the people on the team had been at Disney for around 6-10 years.
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