Staff GenAI/ML Engineer (Emerging Tech & AI Automation) Project Hire

Staff GenAI/ML Engineer (Emerging Tech & AI Automation) Project Hire

At Disney, we're storytellers. We make the impossible, possible. The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) is a world-class entertainment and technological leader. Walt's passion was to continuously envision new ways to move audiences around the world—a passion that remains our touchstone in an enterprise that stretches from theme parks, resorts and a cruise line to sports, news, movies and a variety of other businesses. Uniting each endeavor is a commitment to creating and delivering unforgettable experiences — and we're constantly looking for new ways to enhance these exciting experiences.

The Enterprise Technology mission is to deliver technology solutions that align to business strategies while enabling enterprise efficiency and promoting cross-company collaborative innovation. Our group drives competitive advantage by enhancing our consumer experiences, enabling business growth, and advancing operational excellence.

The Emerging Tech & Automation team is seeking a forward-thinking and hands-on Staff GenAI Engineer to accelerate innovation across the enterprise. This role blends research, engineering, and rapid prototyping to explore the frontiers of Generative AI (GenAI), Large Language Models (LLMs), and automation. You will work closely with product, data, and engineering teams to de-risk cutting-edge technologies and build scalable proof-of-concepts (PoCs) and Minimum Lovable Products (MLPs) that inform enterprise-wide transformation. This includes designing and implementing systems leveraging generative models (LLMs, diffusion models, etc.) for content generation and intelligent automation

Key Responsibilities

• Stay current with advancements in machine learning, GenAI, and cloud-native tooling; Evangelize new technologies and champion adoption through internal demos, knowledge sharing, and documentation.
• Contribute to technical strategy, patent filings, and the development of reusable frameworks that support long-term innovation.
• Lead design and rapid prototyping of GenAI-enabled solutions (chatbots, summarizers, copilots) to explore and validate high-impact business opportunities.
• Evaluate and integrate LLMs and modern GenAI techniques (e.g., RAG, fine-tuning, prompt engineering, embeddings, vector databases) into enterprise use cases.
• Lead architecture discussions, conduct model performance evaluations, and implement best practices in MLOps and GenAI infrastructure.
• Design and build reusable PoCs, pilots, and platform components leveraging modern GenAI/ML frameworks.
• Work closely with business groups across the enterprise to understand their business objectives, use cases and challenges.
• Embed directly with teams including product managers, researchers, and engineering teams to co-develop innovative, robust and scalable GenAI solutions—translating context-rich insights into technical designs and working prototypes that drive meaningful innovation.
• Develop and maintain automation and AI platform components to support scalability, reusability, and experimentation across the organization.
• Mentor junior engineers and foster a culture of experimentation, documentation, and continuous learning.

Required Qualifications & Skills:

• 7+ years of experience in software engineering or ML/AI engineering, with 2+ years hands-on with GenAI or LLM technologies.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to document findings, craft compelling narratives, and present to executive audiences.
• Hands-on experience deploying solutions in cloud environments such as AWS, Azure, or GCP.
• Proven experience working on AI/ML, GenAI, automation, or advanced data platform initiatives in enterprise or R&D settings.
• Advanced proficiency in Python, with strong understanding of system design and scalable architecture.
• Hands-on experience with ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, HuggingFace Transformers, or LangChain.
• Deep knowledge of GenAI techniques including prompt engineering, RAG pipelines, LLM evaluation and fine-tuning LLMs.
• Experience designing and building scalable AI/ML systems, including data architecture spanning NoSQL, graph/vector, and relational databases.
• Strong understanding of MLOps best practices and experience with tools like MLflow, Kubeflow, Docker, and Kubernetes.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate cross-functionally and influence technical direction across engineering, product, and business teams.
• Must be detail oriented, self-organized, and capable of simultaneously prioritizing multiple efforts

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working in R&D or innovation-focused environments with fast-paced prototyping and ambiguous problem spaces.
• Background in building tools or platforms that enable enterprise-wide adoption of AI/ML technologies.
• Previous contributions to open source, patents, or publications in GenAI or ML.
• Passion for Disney's mission and values

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Data Science, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience; advanced degree a plus.

Project Hire Information:

This is a 24 month project hire position with no guarantee of permanent placement.

The hiring range for this position in Burbank, CA is $171, 600 to $230,100 per year, and in Orlando, FL is $163,400 to 219,100 per year, and in Seattle, WA is $179,700 to 241,000 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.