The Walt Disney Company · 22 hours ago
Lead Machine Learning Engineer
Seattle, WA, USA
Full-time
Hybrid
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$172K/yr - $230K/yr
7+ years expThe Walt Disney Company is a global organization focused on technology and innovation in media. As a Lead Machine Learning Engineer, you will be responsible for delivering high-impact machine learning systems and guiding technical direction while collaborating with product and engineering leaders.
Amusement Park and ArcadeAnimationConsumer GoodsDigital MediaE-CommerceMedia and EntertainmentMulti-level MarketingPerforming ArtsResorts
Responsibilities
Lead the design and delivery of machine learning solutions across advertising use cases such as inventory forecasting, pricing, targeting, and efficient ad delivery
Apply modern machine learning techniques to solve complex, real-time advertising problems
Provide technical leadership for ML system architecture, modeling approaches, and production readiness within your domain
Design, build, and scale ML architectures that balance model quality, latency, throughput, reliability, and cost
Oversee the full ML lifecycle for owned systems, from experimentation through production deployment and iteration
Design and maintain feature pipelines and feature stores supporting both real-time inference and offline training
Partner with product and engineering stakeholders to translate requirements into clear technical plans and measurable outcomes
Interpret experimental results and guide data-informed decision-making
Ensure ML systems are observable, debuggable, and explainable in production
Establish and maintain monitoring for model performance, drift, bias, and system health
Champion engineering excellence through best practices in code quality, system design, testing, and operational reliability
Mentor and support engineers through code reviews, design discussions, and ongoing technical guidance
Qualification
Required
Bachelor's in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience
7+ years of software engineering experience
5+ years of hands-on experience developing and deploying machine learning systems in production
Strong knowledge of machine learning fundamentals, mathematics, and statistics
Experience operating ML systems in low-latency, high-throughput environments
Strong communication and collaboration skills with both technical and non-technical partners
Solid foundations in algorithms, data structures, and numerical optimization
Proficiency in Python (primary), with experience in Java and SQL
Experience with ML frameworks and tooling such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Hugging Face
Experience with one or more of the following: Deep learning methodologies (e.g., sequence-based or representation learning models), Transformer architectures (e.g., BERT, GPT, ViT) for NLP and/or vision, Multimodal embedding techniques across text, image, audio, or structured data, Large language models and related evaluation methodologies, Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architectures
Experience building systems on cloud-native infrastructure and distributed platforms
Proven ability to thrive in a fast-paced, data-driven, and collaborative environment
Preferred
MS or PhD (preferred) in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience
Experience in digital video advertising or the digital marketing domain
Experience with programmatic advertising or real-time bidding platforms
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
Robert Iger
CEO
Christine M. McCarthy
Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Recent News
2026-01-20
Company data provided by crunchbase