Staff AI/ML Workflow Engineer for Film Production

Disney Entertainment; Burbank (CA); On-site; USD 158,000 - 212,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus potential

Job summary

Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, CA seeks a Staff Workflow Engineer AIML to design, prototype, and productionize scalable AI‑driven workflows for filmmaking, VFX, and virtual production. This role bridges traditional pipeline engineering with cutting‑edge AI, delivering production‑ready solutions and tools in Python, with GPUs and render farms, while collaborating across engineering and data science teams.

You will translate creative challenges to robust tech, enforce security and governance, and

Qualifications

• Bachelor-level degree or equivalent experience in visual effects or computer graphics.
• 7+ years in production pipeline engineering or VFX workflows.
• Deep Nuke production experience across HDR media, color, and versioning.
• Experience with Maya/Houdini and digital content creation tools.
• Hands-on AI/ML with PyTorch/TensorFlow in production environments.
• Familiarity with GPU acceleration and render farm pipelines.
• Experience with containerization, CI/CD, and modern engineering practices.
• Strong communication and documentation skills.

Responsibilities

• Design and deploy end-to-end workflows for VFX, post, and virtual production.
• Integrate DCC apps into automated, scalable systems.
• Develop tools, APIs, and services to improve efficiency and cost.
• Create proof-of-concept environments to simulate production scenarios.
• Document standards and best practices for adoption.
• Evaluate and productionize AI/ML models in pipelines.
• Build and deploy ML pipelines (training, fine-tuning, inference, optimization).
• Collaborate with data scientists and ML engineers to operationalize research models.
• Develop scalable backend services in Python and related frameworks.
• Work with Docker, Kubernetes, and GPU compute in hybrid cloud/on-prem setups.
• Implement logging, monitoring, and performance profiling.
• Ensure security and data governance across workflows.

Skills

Nuke expertise

Maya and Houdini

Python development

ML model deployment

PyTorch / TensorFlow

Docker / Kubernetes

GPU acceleration

CI/CD workflows

VFX production pipelines

Render farm orchestration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Visual Effects, Digital Arts, Computer Graphics, Animation, Computer Science/Engineering

Tools

Nuke

Maya

Houdini

PyTorch

TensorFlow

ComfyUI

Docker

Kubernetes

FFmpeg

Job description

Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, CA seeks a Staff Workflow Engineer AIML to design, prototype, and productionize scalable AI‑driven workflows for filmmaking, VFX, and virtual production. This role bridges traditional pipeline engineering with cutting‑edge AI, delivering production‑ready solutions and tools in Python, with GPUs and render farms, while collaborating across engineering and data science teams.

You will translate creative challenges to robust tech, enforce security and governance, and