The Walt Disney Company · 1 month ago
Lead Software Engineer - AI Core Engineering
Glendale, CA, USA
Full-time
Hybrid
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$142K/yr - $190K/yr
7+ years expThe Walt Disney Company is a global leader in entertainment and media, and they are seeking a Lead Software Engineer to drive the design and development of AI Core Capabilities within their Ad Technology division. This role involves technical leadership, mentoring engineers, and ensuring the safe and efficient integration of AI across the organization.
Amusement Park and ArcadeAnimationConsumer GoodsDigital MediaE-CommerceMedia and EntertainmentMulti-level MarketingPerforming ArtsResorts
Responsibilities
Define reference designs and best practices for reusable AI agents, services, and webapps
Provide technical guidance and code/design reviews for senior engineers
Lead the design and development of agents, SDKs, and accelerators that support multiple teams
Deliver APIs and frameworks that simplify integration with AI services and enterprise systems
Develop high-quality APIs and SDKs that simplify adoption of AI capabilities by other engineering teams
Establish standards for guardrails, evaluation, and observability of AI-driven workflows
Partner with security and governance teams to ensure compliance and safe adoption
Mentor engineers, share knowledge, and raise the overall technical bar
Work with product, infra, and security leaders to accelerate AI adoption across Disney Ad Tech
Qualification
Required
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field (Master's preferred), or equivalent experience
7+ years of software engineering experience, with 1+ years in technical leadership roles
Strong proficiency in Python and backend frameworks; experience building scalable APIs and SDKs
Hands-on with LLM APIs (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Claude) and orchestration frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LangGraph)
Experience integrating with enterprise AI services such as AWS Bedrock or Azure AI Foundry
Strong knowledge of AI safety, governance, and evaluation practices
Proven ability to mentor engineers and drive cross-team adoption of shared solutions
Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to explain complex technical concepts to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders
Experience conducting code reviews and enforcing best practices for maintainability, security, and performance
Proven ability to mentor and coach engineers, providing feedback, guidance, and technical growth opportunities
Experience with system design and architecture discussions, including trade-off analysis
Demonstrated ability to collaborate across functions (infra, data, security, product) to align on shared solutions
Preferred
Experience building AI enablement frameworks (registries, initializers, reusable components)
Familiarity with observability and tracing for AI systems (latency, cost, quality)
Knowledge of AI gateway patterns (routing, throttling, fallback, quotas)
Prior experience in developer enablement or platform engineering roles with broad organizational impact
Experience leading cross-team technical initiatives, ensuring consistency and reuse across large engineering organizations
Skilled at writing technical documentation, design RFCs, and standards for broader adoption
Track record of influencing engineering culture by raising quality bars, introducing new practices, and driving adoption
Prior experience leading incident reviews, RCAs, or architecture reviews at scale
Experience presenting technical strategies to leadership and cross-functional stakeholders
Demonstrated ability to balance hands-on coding with technical leadership and mentoring
Benefits
A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package
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
Christine M. McCarthy
Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Jamie Power
SVP, Addressable Sales
Recent News
2026-01-08
2026-01-07
Company data provided by crunchbase