Senior Principal Machine Learning Engineer

Job ID 10122713 Location Seattle, Washington, United States / Santa Monica, California, United States / San Francisco, California, United States / New York, New York, United States / Los Angeles, California, United States Business Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology Date posted Jun. 27, 2025

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Job Summary:

Technology is at the heart of Disney’s past, present, and future. Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology is a global organization of engineers, product developers, designers, technologists, data scientists, and more – all working to build and advance the technological backbone for Disney’s media business globally.

The team marries technology with creativity to build world-class products, enhance storytelling, and drive velocity, innovation, and scalability for our businesses. We are Storytellers and Innovators. Creators and Builders. Entertainers and Engineers. We work with every part of The Walt Disney Company’s media portfolio to advance the technological foundation and consumer media touch points serving millions of people around the world.

Disney Entertainment & ESPN Product Technology

On any given day at Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology, we’re reimagining ways to create magical viewing experiences for the world’s most beloved stories while also transforming Disney’s media business for the future. Whether that’s evolving our streaming and digital products in new and immersive ways, powering worldwide advertising and distribution to maximize flexibility and efficiency, or delivering Disney’s unmatched entertainment and sports content, every day is a moment to make a difference to partners and to hundreds of millions of people around the world.

A few reasons why we think you’d love working for Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology

Building the future of Disney’s media business: DE&E Technologists are designing and building the infrastructure that will power Disney’s media, advertising, and distribution businesses for years to come.
Reach & Scale: The products and platforms this group builds and operates delight millions of consumers every minute of every day – from Disney+ and Hulu, to ABC News and Entertainment, to ESPN and ESPN+, and much more.
Innovation: We develop and execute groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms and enhance how audiences experience sports, entertainment & news.

Job Summary:

We are hiring a Senior Principal Machine Learning Engineer to shape the future of personalization and content recommendations across Disney+, Hulu, ABC, and ESPN. As one of the most senior technical leaders in our organization, you will set the direction for machine learning innovation at scale—guiding both long-term vision and near-term execution for products that impact hundreds of millions of users. This is a strategic individual contributor role with broad technical scope and organizational influence. You will define architectural standards for personalization systems, lead cross-functional initiatives spanning multiple business units, and drive the development of novel algorithms that deliver measurable user and business value. You will partner with executive leadership across Engineering, Product, and Data to align personalization strategies with company-wide priorities. In addition to solving high-impact technical challenges, you will serve as a thought leader and mentor—elevating the work of other senior engineers and helping build a culture of technical excellence and innovation across the organization.

Responsibilities:

Define and drive the long-term technical vision for personalization and recommendation systems across Disney+, Hulu, ABC, and ESPN—ensuring alignment with overarching product and business strategies.
Lead the development of foundational machine learning architectures and algorithms, enabling scalable, real-time, and highly personalized user experiences for hundreds of millions of users.
Serve as a cross-functional thought leader, partnering with senior executives in Product, Engineering, Data, and Design to influence company-wide personalization strategy and investment.
Identify and drive high-impact initiatives that advance the state-of-the-art in machine learning, guiding efforts from concept through deployment with measurable business outcomes.
Mentor and elevate technical leaders across teams, fostering a culture of innovation, rigor, and excellence in machine learning engineering.
Set standards for experimentation, model evaluation, and algorithm fairness; establish frameworks and tools to accelerate development and promote reproducibility.
Represent Disney Streaming’s personalization efforts in strategic forums, internal councils, and external technical communities (e.g., conferences, publications, industry panels).

Basic Qualifications:

Track recordings of research & publications in recommendation system domain with deep neural net algorithms.
Strong proficiency in at least one of the following deep learning frameworks, tensorflow, pytorch.
Experiences building and deploying full stack ML pipelines: data extraction, data mining, model training, feature development, testing, and deployment.
Track record from design to full production of effective recommendation systems.
Experience with cloud services in a production environment (particularly AWS).
Understanding of statistical concepts (e.g., hypothesis testing, regression analysis).
Ability to articulate the usage and behavior of models and algorithms to both technical and non-technical audiences.
12+ years of relevant experience

Preferred Qualifications:

Master’s or PhD in statistics, math, computer science, or related quantitative field.
Production experience with developing content recommendation algorithms at scale and familiar with metadata management, data lineage, and principles of data governance.
Deep understanding in personalization challenges in homepage experience and proven records of developing effective solutions.

Experience with:

12+ years of experience in developing highly scalable machine learning products
12+ years writing production-level, scalable Python codes

Required Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience

The hiring range for this position in Seattle, WA & New York, NY is $234,400 to $314,300 per year, in San Francisco, CA is $245,100 to $328,600 per year and in Los Angeles/Santa Monica, CA is $223,700 to $300,000 per year. The base pay actually offered will take into account internal equity and also may vary depending on the candidate’s geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors. A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to the full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the level and position offered.

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About Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology:

At Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology, we’re blending imagination and innovation to reimagine the ways people experience and engage with the world’s most beloved stories and products. Our work is wide-ranging and deeply sophisticated. We create amazing experiences, transform the future of media, and build products and platforms that enable the connection between people everywhere and the stories and sports they love.

Disney’s ability to marry world-class technology with one-of-a-kind creativity makes us unique. It is at the heart of our past, present, and future. We are Storytellers and Innovators. Creators and Builders. Entertainers and Engineers.

About The Walt Disney Company:

The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise that includes three core business segments: Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and Disney Experiences. From humble beginnings as a cartoon studio in the 1920s to its preeminent name in the entertainment industry today, Disney proudly continues its legacy of creating world-class stories and experiences for every member of the family. Disney’s stories, characters and experiences reach consumers and guests from every corner of the globe. With operations in more than 40 countries, our employees and cast members work together to create entertainment experiences that are both universally and locally cherished.

This position is with Disney Streaming Technology LLC, which is part of a business we call Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology.

Disney Streaming Technology LLC is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, military or veteran status, medical condition, genetic information or disability, or any other basis prohibited by federal, state or local law. Disney champions a business environment where ideas and decisions from all people help us grow, innovate, create the best stories and be relevant in a constantly evolving world.

We will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with applicable law.

DISABILITY ACCOMMODATION FOR EMPLOYMENT APPLICATIONS

The Walt Disney Company and its Affiliated Companies are Equal Employment Opportunity employers and welcome all job seekers including individuals with disabilities and veterans with disabilities. If you have a disability and believe you need a reasonable accommodation in order to search for a job opening or apply for a position, visit the Disney candidate disability accommodations FAQs. We will only respond to those requests that are related to the accessibility of the online application system due to a disability.

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Explore this Location Seattle, WA

With a thriving food-and-drink scene, eclectic neighborhoods and a stunning coastal setting, Seattle is a dynamic urban enclave nestled in the Pacific Northwest. The city is bounded by Lake Washington in the east and Puget Sound to the west, an ideal location for water recreation and sight-seeing cruises.