Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology; New York (NY); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Financial benefits

Bonus and or long-term incentive units

Job summary

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology in New York, NY is seeking a senior individual contributor to develop, productionize, and refine personalization and recommendation algorithms for Disney+ and Hulu. The role collaborates with Engineering, Product, and Data teams to deliver scalable ML solutions.

You will own end-to-end ML pipelines from feature engineering to deployment, build data infrastructures with Airflow, Databricks, and Spark, and uphold production-quality standards.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience developing ML models or data engineering.
• 5+ years writing production-grade Python and SQL.
• 3+ years deploying algorithms to production systems.
• Experience with large-scale data, cloud platforms, and data pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Algorithm development and maintenance for personalization and recommendations.
• Build and maintain ETL pipelines with Airflow and Jenkins; deploy data pipelines at scale.
• Establish and uphold standards for development, testing, and deployment.
• Collaborate with product, data teams to improve data collection and experimentation.

Skills

Strong communication skills

Production ML experience

End-to-end ML pipeline experience

Education

MS or PhD in statistics, mathematics, computer science, or related quantitative field

Tools

Python

SQL

Airflow

Jenkins

Databricks

S3

Spark

Job description

This on-site senior individual contributor role focuses on developing, productionizing, and refining personalization and recommendation algorithms for Disney plus and Hulu. Based in New York, NY, the position collaborates across Engineering, Product, and Data teams to deliver high-impact ML solutions.

Responsibilities

• Algorithm development and maintenance: Apply advanced machine learning methods to create personalization, recommendation, and other predictive systems; maintain production-grade algorithms and communicate methodologies to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Feature engineering and optimization: Build and maintain ETL pipelines using tools such as Airflow and Jenkins; deploy scalable streaming and batch data pipelines to support petabyte-scale data sets.
• Development best practices: Establish and uphold standards for algorithm development, testing, and deployment.
• Collaboration with product and business stakeholders: Identify new personalization opportunities and partner with data teams to improve data collection, experimentation, and analysis.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience developing machine learning models, performing large-scale data analysis, or data engineering.
• 5+ years writing production-level, scalable code in Python and SQL.
• 3+ years implementing algorithms for deployment to production systems.
• Strong understanding of modern machine learning methods, models, and their mathematical foundations.
• Experience deploying and maintaining data pipelines and building big-data solutions with Databricks, S3, and Spark.
• Ability to assess problem complexity and apply simple, effective approaches when appropriate.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• MS or PhD in statistics, mathematics, computer science, or a related quantitative field.
• Production experience with content recommendation algorithms at scale.
• Experience building and deploying end-to-end ML pipelines: data extraction, data mining, model training, feature development, testing, and deployment.
• Familiarity with metadata management, data lineage, and data governance principles.
• Experience loading and querying cloud-hosted databases.

Technologies

• Python
• SQL
• Airflow
• Jenkins
• Databricks
• S3
• Spark

Benefits

• Medical benefits
• Financial benefits
• Bonus and or long-term incentive units

Role Location

This is an on-site role requiring four days in-person at the designated office location.

About Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology is a global organization of engineers, product developers, designers, technologists, data scientists, and more, focused on building and advancing the technical backbone for Disney's media business worldwide. The team blends technology with creativity to deliver world-class products, enhance storytelling, and drive innovation and scalability for our businesses. We operate across The Walt Disney Company’s media portfolio to support millions of users globally.

Why You Might Like Working Here

• Building the future of Disney's media: Technologists design and build the platforms powering media, advertising, and distribution for years to come.
• Reach, Scale & Impact: Disney's technology and products connect fans with brands and stories across Disney+, Hulu, ESPN, ABC, and more.
• Innovation: The team develops and implements novel products and techniques that shape industry norms and tackle complex technical challenges.

Job Summary

The team constructs models that directly influence user experience by enabling personalization and engagement across Disney Streaming applications, notably Disney+ and Hulu. With a product-minded approach and a focus on usability, ML-driven products are crafted to improve discovery, interaction, and enjoyment. Collaboration across Engineering, Product, and Data teams is essential to apply machine learning methods that support strategic goals.