Lead ML Engineer — Generative AI for Ad Tech

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 241,000; Full time

Job summary

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology seeks a Lead Machine Learning Engineer to lead generative AI and traditional ML efforts at scale. You will develop, evaluate, and deploy models across video, image, text, and multimodal domains, collaborating with UX and front-end teams to ship production AI products.

You will mentor engineers, shape modeling practices, and contribute to a fast-paced data-driven culture within Disney’s media technology ecosystem.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s in computer science or equivalent experience.
• Experience in generative AI modeling or AI-based editing domains: image, video, mixed media, audio, LLMs, or agentic flows.
• Experience creating ML datasets 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 ML systems.
• Strong knowledge of AI/ML technologies, mathematics and statistics.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
• Strong foundations in algorithms, data structures, numerical optimization; Python/Java/SQL.
• Familiarity with TensorFlow, PyTorch, Jax, HuggingFace.
• Proven proficiency in deep learning methodologies, transformer architectures.
• Experience working with UX/front-end designers on production generative AI products.

Responsibilities

• Develop, optimize, and productionize innovative generative AI technologies.
• Create, evaluate, and improve AI/ML systems across advertising domains.
• Invent and iterate on novel solutions with rapid prototyping and deployment.
• Design, build, and scale robust ML systems powering core ad platform capabilities.
• Champion engineering excellence with code quality and reliability.
• Mentor and support junior engineers, fostering learning and growth.

Skills

Generative AI

ML Engineering

Python

LLMs

Deep Learning

Java

SQL

Communication

Education

Bachelor's in CS

MS or PhD in CS (preferred)

Tools

TensorFlow

PyTorch

JAX

HuggingFace

Job description

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology seeks a Lead Machine Learning Engineer to lead generative AI and traditional ML efforts at scale. You will develop, evaluate, and deploy models across video, image, text, and multimodal domains, collaborating with UX and front-end teams to ship production AI products.

You will mentor engineers, shape modeling practices, and contribute to a fast-paced data-driven culture within Disney’s media technology ecosystem.