Lead Machine Learning Engineer

Job ID 10117829 | Location: Glendale, California; San Francisco, California; New York, New York; Seattle, Washington

Business: Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology

Date posted: 9月. 24, 2025

Overview

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.

Product Engineering is a unified team responsible for the engineering of Disney Entertainment & ESPN digital and streaming products and platforms, including product engineering, media engineering, quality assurance, personalization, commerce, lifecycle, and identity. The Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology team is looking for a passionate Lead Machine Learning Engineer to drive security and operation anomaly detection initiatives within the Commerce, Data, and Identity Alliance.

We are seeking experienced ML engineers to lead the development and deployment of machine learning models that help reduce security and operation risk for our services. In this role, you’ll work with teams across commerce, growth, and identity to leverage ML solutions that enhance the security posture of our services. This team is based out of the New York and the Santa Monica offices, and you will be a key leader helping drive ML initiatives across the team.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and optimize machine learning models that improve our security posture.
• Manage the full lifecycle of ML development, including data collection, feature engineering, model selection, evaluation, and production.
• Collaborate with engineers to deploy models at scale, ensuring robust A/B testing frameworks to assess the impact on key business metrics.
• Lead exploratory analyses and complex statistical modeling to deliver actionable insights that inform high-stakes business decisions.
• Translate complex data into clear and actionable insights through visualizations, reports, and presentations tailored to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Drive data-informed decision-making by presenting findings that highlight security implications.
• Collaborate with other data teams to improve our data infrastructure, including models, visualizations, and experimentation capabilities.
• Mentor and grow a high-performing team of data scientists, creating an environment that encourages learning and innovation.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or a related field. Master’s degree or PhD is a plus.
• 7+ years of experience in building, deploying, and evaluating real-world machine learning solutions.
• Proficiency in Python, R, SQL, and other relevant programming languages.
• Experience with data wrangling tools (e.g., Pandas, NumPy), databases (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL), and big data platforms (e.g., Spark, Databricks, Jupyter, Snowflake, Airflow, GitHub).
• Expertise in ML libraries such as scikit-learn, SciPy, and related technologies.
• Strong foundation in statistics, probability, and data modeling techniques.
• Excellent problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working with Amazon Web Services.
• Experience with Tableau, Power BI, or similar platforms.
• Experience building anomaly detection models.
• Knowledge of software security.

The hiring range for this position in Los Angeles is $202,900 to $272,100 per year, in San Francisco is $222,200 to $297,900 per year, and in New York or Seattle is $212,600 to $285,100 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.

About Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology

At Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology, we’re blending imagination and innovation to reimagine the ways people experience and engage with the world’s most beloved stories and products. Our work is wide-ranging and deeply sophisticated. We create amazing experiences, transform the future of media, and build products and platforms that enable the connection between people everywhere and the stories and sports they love.

Disney’s ability to marry world-class technology with one-of-a-kind creativity makes us unique. It is at the heart of our past, present, and future. We are Storytellers and Innovators. Creators and Builders. Entertainers and Engineers.

About The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise that includes three core business segments: Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and Disney Experiences. From humble beginnings as a cartoon studio in the 1920s to its preeminent name in the entertainment industry today, Disney proudly continues its legacy of creating world-class stories and experiences for every member of the family. Disney’s stories, characters and experiences reach consumers and guests from every corner of the globe. With operations in more than 40 countries, our employees and cast members work together to create entertainment experiences that are both universally and locally cherished.

This position is with Disney Streaming Technology LLC, which is part of a business we call Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology.

Disney Streaming Technology LLC is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, military or veteran status, medical condition, genetic information or disability, or any other basis prohibited by federal, state or local law. Disney champions a business environment where ideas and decisions from all people help us grow, innovate, create the best stories and be relevant in a constantly evolving world.

Disability Accommodation For Employment Applications: The Walt Disney Company and its Affiliated Companies are Equal Employment Opportunity employers and welcome all job seekers including individuals with disabilities and veterans with disabilities. If you have a disability and believe you need a reasonable accommodation in order to search for a job opening or apply for a position, email Candidate.Accommodations@Disney.com with your request. This email address is not for general employment inquiries or correspondence. We will only respond to those requests that are related to the accessibility of the online application system due to a disability.

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