Applied AI Engineering Manager

Disney; Burbank (CA); On-site; USD 172,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Disney's Applied AI Acceleration team is hiring a Manager, Applied AI to lead a small squad of AI engineers and ship AI-powered products that move the needle for our businesses. This on-site role requires hands-on leadership, deep AI know-how, and a user-centric approach to solving real problems.

You will oversee end-to-end engagements, mentor engineers, review code, and develop reusable playbooks while translating business needs into practical AI solutions across Disney's enterprise.

Qualifications

• Minimum 8+ years of relevant experience.
• Minimum 2+ years in a leadership-adjacent role: Engineering Manager, Technical Lead, or equivalent.
• Experience with AI-powered products end-to-end (LLMs, agents, embeddings).
• Proficient with production AI stack: prompt design, RAG, tool-calling agents, eval harnesses.
• Data literacy: SQL, APIs, basic transformations; unblock engagements
• Experience leading people - direct reports or engagement teams.

Responsibilities

• End-to-end delivery of 2-4 AI engagements with varying cadence.
• Stand up a squad of 2-4 AI engineers and align with senior engineers.
• Review PRs, tackle hard problems, collaborative problem-solving.
• Translate business outcomes into technical tradeoffs without losing nuance.
• Extract patterns to create reusable components, playbooks, or templates.

Skills

AI leadership

Delivery of AI products

Team leadership

Prompt design

Data literacy

SQL & APIs

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Claude

Cursor

LLMs

Job description

Disney's Applied AI Acceleration team is hiring a Manager, Applied AI to lead a small squad of AI engineers and ship AI-powered products that move the needle for our businesses. This on-site role requires hands-on leadership, deep AI know-how, and a user-centric approach to solving real problems.

You will oversee end-to-end engagements, mentor engineers, review code, and develop reusable playbooks while translating business needs into practical AI solutions across Disney's enterprise.