As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer on the News ML team at Disney+, you will lead technical initiatives from design to deployment, focusing on scalable learning and inference infrastructure. You’ll develop data pipelines, workflow orchestration tools, and feature libraries while driving solutions for recommendation systems, object detection, and automated tagging. Collaborating closely with product, editorial, and engineering teams, you will translate business requirements into robust technical solutions, prioritize high-impact initiatives, and champion best practices in code quality, testing, and observability. The role requires expertise in deep learning algorithms, cloud infrastructure (AWS), big data technologies like Databricks and Kafka, and experience with observability tools such as Datadog. Your work will support strategic initiatives to deliver personalized news content at scale across web, mobile, and connected TV platforms.
Own complex technical initiatives from design to production deployment.
Design and develop infrastructure for machine learning data pipelines and workflows.
Drive ML solutions for recommendation systems and other engineering use cases.
Prioritize strategic initiatives and mitigate risks for successful execution.
Champion best practices in code quality, testing, CI/CD, and observability.
Mentor engineers and foster a culture of ownership and continuous improvement.
What we're looking for
5+ years of experience building and operating ML engineering systems in production environments
Expertise in data science, deep learning algorithms, and statistical methods for real-world problems
Experience designing backend microservices for large-scale distributed systems using REST
Familiarity with AWS cloud infrastructure including Step Functions, Lambda, Glue, SQS, SNS, Personalize
Hands-on experience with big data technologies such as Databricks, Kinesis, Kafka
Proven leadership and mentoring skills to inspire and empower a team towards business goals
Experience with observability tools for metrics, logging, and monitoring like Datadog
Market check
Salary context
This
$148,700–$199,400
range sits above
28%
of similar postings on FindRole.
Peer median band
$159,500–$239,350
Median floor and ceiling across peers.
Typical midpoint (25–75%)
$167,500–$238,250
Middle half of comparable postings.
Based on 240 comparable postings.*
* 240 is the maximum number of comparable postings sampled.
Employer
About The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is a diversified global entertainment and media enterprise operating in segments including Disney Parks, Experiences and Products; Entertainment (ABC, Hulu, Disney+); and ESPN. Industry: Entertainment & Media
The Walt Disney Company currently has
118 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$141,900–$190,300
across 110 roles with salary data.