Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Job Summary :

The Ad Platform Engineering organization within Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology is responsible for building, enhancing, and operating a high-performance, distributed, microservice-based digital advertising platform. This platform powers billions of real-time ad decisions daily across Disney’s video-on-demand and live TV properties, including Hulu, Disney+, ESPN, and more.

Within Ad Platform Engineering, the Programmatic teams build and maintain Disney’s programmatic advertising suite of products and services that comprise Disney's Real-time Ad Exchange (DRAX). DRAX is an award-winning, proprietary supply-side platform (SSP) that enables programmatic deal configuration and integrates demand from multiple third-party sources into Disney’s ad server in real time.

As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer, you will design, build, and operate production machine learning systems that directly impact revenue, efficiency, and viewer experience at global scale. This is a hands-on, production-focused role, ideal for an experienced ML engineer who enjoys owning complex systems end-to-end, partnering closely with product and engineering teams, and delivering measurable impact in low-latency, high-throughput environments operating at billion-request-per-day scale.

This role is not research-only. Success is measured by production outcomes, system reliability, model performance, and continuous iteration based on data and feedback.

Daily, you should bring :

• Strong technical ownership and accountability for production ML systems
• Effective collaboration and communication across engineering, product, and data partners
• Comfort operating in ambiguity and translating loosely defined problems into scalable solutions
• A continuous improvement mindset with attention to performance, reliability, and cost
• The ability to define and use technical and operational metrics to measure system and model health

Responsibilities :

Basic Qualifications :

Preferred Qualifications :

The hiring range for this position in Glendale, California is $141,900 to $190,300 per year, Santa Monica, California is $141,900 to $190,300 per year, and Seattle, WA is $148,700 to $199,400 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.