Senior Machine Learning Engineering Manager, Ad Platforms

Job Summary

Senior Machine Learning Engineering Manager – leading the ML/AI team within Ad Platforms, driving scalable AI/ML solutions to enhance Disney’s advertising technology across Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+.

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and guide senior ICs and engineering managers in data science, ML, and AI disciplines to deliver scalable solutions.
• Define strategic direction for machine learning projects in collaboration with product and engineering stakeholders.
• Drive best‑practice adoption in model development, code quality, testing, and documentation.
• Oversee the end‑to‑end ML workflow: data collection, model development, deployment, and monitoring.
• Foster innovation by exploring advanced ML techniques, tools, and technologies.
• Ensure responsible AI practices, including fairness, explainability, and compliance with privacy and ethical standards.
• Communicate strategies and results to leadership and cross‑functional teams.
• Participate in on‑call rotations per team escalation policy.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, engineering, mathematics, statistics, or a related field.
• 10+ years industry experience with at least 5 years in people‑management of senior ICs and managers.
• Proven ability to translate business problems into scalable ML and GenAI solutions.
• Experience designing, building, deploying scalable machine learning models and systems in production.
• Advanced programming proficiency (e.g., Python, Java) and experience with ML/DL frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, JAX, Hugging Face.
• Experience building, fine‑tuning, evaluating, and deploying LLM‑based systems (RAG, prompt engineering, model optimization).
• Strong knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) and MLOps pipelines.
• Track record of leading global teams and collaborating across organizational boundaries.

Preferred Qualifications

• Domain knowledge in the Ad Tech industry.
• Experience working with large‑scale data and distributed systems.
• Knowledge of cloud platforms and MLOps pipelines.
• Track record of innovation and contributions to the ML/AI community (publications, talks, open source).

Benefits

• Base salary range: $207,400 – $278,100 (LosAngeles, CA) and $217,300 – $291,500 (Seattle, WA).
• Potential bonus and/or long‑term incentive units.
• Full range of medical, financial, and other benefits.

Location

Seattle, WA (primary); alternate location: LosAngeles, CA.