The Walt Disney Company · 2 hours ago
Sr Staff R&D Engineer
Nicasio, CA
Full-time
Hybrid
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$206K/yr - $277K/yr
5+ years expThe Walt Disney Company is seeking a highly accomplished Sr Staff R&D Engineer (AI/ML) to lead the development of transformative audio intelligence technologies for global media production. This senior-level role focuses on advancing the next-generation soundtrack platform, with responsibilities including architecting machine learning systems and collaborating across teams to deliver production-ready solutions.
Amusement Park and ArcadeAnimationConsumer GoodsDigital MediaE-CommerceMedia and EntertainmentMulti-level MarketingPerforming ArtsResorts
Responsibilities
Lead the research, design, and implementation of state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms for speech processing, voice transfer, source separation, and upmixing in media post-production environments
Drive the architecture and deployment of scalable model training pipelines using PyTorch and distributed computing frameworks
Develop novel generative audio models, including latent diffusion, flow-based models, variational autoencoders, and neural vocoders, optimized for professional soundtrack production
Own end-to-end model lifecycle management: pretraining, fine-tuning, validation, inference optimization, and CI/CD integration
Guide the development of personalized model adaptation workflows to support per-user tuning, cross-project continuity, and flexible deployment
Collaborate with product, platform, and engineering leads to define integration strategies within a secure, cloud-optimized SaaS environment
Stay at the forefront of generative audio, multi-modal modeling, and self-supervised learning—translating emerging research into applied innovation
Contribute to internal tooling and infrastructure that improves iteration speed, reproducibility, and explainability of deployed models
Mentor junior researchers and engineers, and contribute to a culture of rigorous experimentation, collaboration, and continuous improvement
Qualification
Required
MSc or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Applied Math, or a related field with a focus on AI/ML and multi-modal signal processing
5 years of professional experience in applied ML, with a deep focus on audio-centric AI/ML research and deployment
Expertise in building and scaling models using PyTorch, with fluency in training, fine-tuning, and inference for deep neural networks
Demonstrated experience developing generative models such as VAE, GAN, diffusion models, or neural vocoders (e.g., HiFi-GAN, WaveNet)
Deep understanding of audio-specific ML domains, including source separation, speech enhancement, music processing, and cross-modal tasks
Experience with MLOps tooling (e.g., Weights & Biases, MLflow, Datachain), Docker-based containerization, and scalable infrastructure for distributed training
Fluency in audio signal processing fundamentals and the integration of DSP into ML pipelines
Proven ability to contribute to architectural planning, research strategy, and production deployment in complex, multi-stakeholder environments
Preferred
Familiarity with audio/text/video multi-modal frameworks and cross-domain representations
Experience implementing real-time or near-real-time inference pipelines in cloud or edge environments (e.g., AWS, GCP, on-prem GPUs)
Working knowledge of latent diffusion audio models (e.g., stable-audio, AudioLDM, AudioGen)
Strong knowledge of industry-standard audio datasets and benchmarks (LibriSpeech, VCTK, MUSDB, etc.)
Experience optimizing inference pipelines for creative applications or interactive use
Proficiency in lower-level audio frameworks (C / C++, etc.)
Contributions to published research at top-tier conferences (NeurIPS, ICASSP, ICLR, Interspeech) and/or open-source ML frameworks
Benefits
A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package
The full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits
Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company started as a cartoon studio and evolves into sports coverage and television shows.
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
The Walt Disney Company has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (83)
2024 (63)
2023 (96)
2022 (130)
2021 (30)
2020 (40)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$11BKey Investors
Citibank
2020-04-13Post Ipo Debt· $5B
2020-03-20Post Ipo Debt· $6B
1978-01-06IPO
Leadership Team
Robert Iger
CEO
Christine M. McCarthy
Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Recent News
2025-12-24
Company data provided by crunchbase