Lead ML Engineer: Generative AI for Ad Tech

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology; Santa Monica (CA); On-site; USD 172,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology is seeking a Lead Machine Learning Engineer in the Santa Monica/Seattle/IL regions to lead generative AI initiatives and traditional ML projects. You will design and deploy scalable ML systems, collaborate with UX and frontend teams, and mentor engineers in a fast-paced, data-driven environment.

You will work on generative media, LLMs, and multimodal AI, while also advancing classical ML techniques to optimize ad marketplace operations and

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s in computer science or equivalent experience.
• Experience rigorously developing, researching, and/or productionizing generative AI modeling or AI-based editing domains: image, video, mixed media, audio, LLMs, agentic flows.
• Experience creating ML datasets (especially CV or generative AI) or developing rigorous quality evaluation processes or data labeling processes.
• Experience developing language-processing applications via LLMs or agentic flows.
• Minimum 7 years of hands-on experience developing and deploying large-scale machine learning systems.
• Strong knowledge of AI/ML technologies, mathematics and statistics.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills across technical and non-technical audiences.

Responsibilities

• Develop, optimize, and productionize technologies in generative AI and traditional ML modeling.
• Create, evaluate, and improve technologies across advertising domains.
• Drive innovation with state-of-the-art AI across ad platforms, including forecasting, targeting, ad delivery.
• Invent and iterate on novel solutions to advertising challenges with rapid prototyping and deployment.
• Design, build, and scale robust ML systems powering core ad capabilities.
• Promote engineering excellence through code quality, system design, and reliability.
• Mentor junior engineers and foster a culture of learning.

Skills

Generative AI

Multimodal models

Deep learning

Language models

Algorithms & data structures

Python programming

Collaboration & mentorship

Education

Bachelor’s in computer science

Tools

TensorFlow

PyTorch

JAX

Hugging Face libraries

Python

Java

SQL

Job description

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology is seeking a Lead Machine Learning Engineer in the Santa Monica/Seattle/IL regions to lead generative AI initiatives and traditional ML projects. You will design and deploy scalable ML systems, collaborate with UX and frontend teams, and mentor engineers in a fast-paced, data-driven environment.

You will work on generative media, LLMs, and multimodal AI, while also advancing classical ML techniques to optimize ad marketplace operations and