Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Lead Machine Learning Engineer Job ID: 10151720 Location: Glendale, CA & New York, NY Business: Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology Date Posted: May 21, 2026 Job Summary Our team designs and builds models that directly shape the user experience—powering personalization and engagement across Disney+ and Hulu. As an individual contributor, you will lead recommendation and personalization algorithm research, development, and productionization, and coordinate with product, engineering, and editorial stakeholders. Responsibilities and Duties Algorithm Development and Maintenance: Develop algorithms for personalization, recommendation, and other predictive systems; maintain production deployments and explain methodologies to technical and non‑technical teams. Feature Engineering and Optimization: Build and maintain ETL pipelines using orchestration tools such as Airflow and Jenkins; deploy scalable streaming and batch data pipelines to support petabyte‑scale datasets. Development Best Practices: Maintain existing and establish new standards for algorithm development, testing, and deployment. Collaborate with Product and Business Stakeholders: Identify and define new personalization opportunities and improve data collection, experimentation, and analysis processes. Required Education, Experience, Skills, and Training 7+ years of experience developing machine learning models, performing large‑scale data analysis, and/or data engineering. 5+ years writing production‑level, scalable code (Python, SQL). 3+ years of experience developing algorithms for production deployment. Led complex projects and mentored team members. In‑depth understanding of modern machine learning (e.g., deep learning methods), models, and their mathematical underpinnings. Experience deploying and maintaining pipelines and engineering big‑data solutions using technologies like Databricks, S3, and Spark. Ability to gauge the complexity of machine learning problems and a willingness to execute simple approaches for quick, effective solutions where appropriate. Strong written and verbal communication skills. Preferred Qualifications MS or PhD in statistics, math, computer science, or related quantitative field. Production experience with developing content recommendation algorithms at scale. Experience building and deploying full‑stack ML pipelines: data extraction, data mining, model training, feature development, testing, and deployment. Familiar with metadata management, data lineage, and principles of data governance. Experience loading and querying cloud‑hosted databases. Experience With AWS, Databricks Required Education Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Math, Statistics, or related quantitative field. Compensation The hiring range for this position in New York, NY is $148,700 – $199,400 per year and in Santa Monica, CA is $141,900 – $190,300 per year. Bonuses and long‑term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to the full range of medical, financial, and other benefits. Equal Employment Opportunity Statement Disney Entertainment & Sports LLC is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender, 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. Disability Accommodation The Walt Disney Company and its affiliated companies welcome job seekers with disabilities. If you have a disability and need a reasonable accommodation in searching for a job opening or applying for a position, please email View email address on click.appcast.io with your request. This email address is not for general employment inquiries or correspondence. #J-18808-Ljbffr The Walt Disney Company