Senior Principal Machine Learning Architect, Ad Platforms

Senior Principal Machine Learning Architect, Ad Platforms

Job
Location Santa Monica, California, United States / Glendale, California, United States
Business Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology
Date posted Jan. 06, 2026

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.

Here are a few reasons why we think you’d love working here:

• Building the future of Disney’s media:
Our technologists are designing and building the products and platforms that will power our media, advertising, and distribution businesses for years to come.

• Reach, Scale & Impact:
More than ever, Disney’s technology and products serve as a signature doorway for fans’ connections with the company’s brands and stories. Disney+, Hulu, ESPN, ABC, ABC News… and many more. These products and brands – and the unmatched stories, storytellers, and events they carry – matter to millions of people globally.

• Innovation:
We develop and implement groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms, and solve complex and distinctive technical problems.

Ad Platforms is responsible for Disney’s industry‑leading ad technology and products – driving advertising performance, innovation, and value in Disney’s sports, news, and entertainment content, across all media platforms.

The Senior Principal ML Architect is responsible for designing, developing, and operationalizing scalable machine‑learning and artificial‑intelligence solutions across the Ad Platform organization. This role partners closely dbc engineering, product, and data teams to define system architecture, ensure data-tech quality, and deploy models into production. The AI/ML architect evaluates emerging technologies, establishes best practices, and drives the end‑to‑end ML lifecycle, enabling the business to deliver reliable, high‑impact AI capabilities.

This role will be part of multiple fleets, including AI/ML teams.

Responsibilities and Expectations:

• Influence strategies toLETED address internal or external business objectives.

• Lead highly visible multidisciplinary projects or initiatives, providing thought leadership and influence decision making.

• Proactively identify and solve complex and business‑critical matters that impact the direction of overall business.

Daily, you should bring:

• Excellent communication and collaboration across teams and organizations.

• Strong and sound understanding of architectural best practices and principles in machine learning and AI domains.

• Pro tunis in designing and implementing robust, scalable, measurable models and pipelines.

• A passion for mentoring, learning, and adapting to a very dynamic and fast‑paced environment.

• Proven ability to collaborate with product teams, translating requirements into well‑defined technical implementations. Skilled in defining technical and operational metrics for measuring system health.

• Knowledge of relevant and upcoming technologies and their potential application within the stack.

• A keen eye for potential optimizations and enhancements.

• Kindness and pragmatic optimism.

• Your unique view and experience.

Basic Qualifications:

• barkeit BS or MS in Computer Science/Engineering, or relevant work experience.

• 12 years of experience in software engineering, architecture, or relevant fields.

• Proficiency in toolkits like Tensor Flow, PyTorch, or other deep learning frameworks.

• Experience using Amazon Sage Maker, Amazon Bedrock, and other related ML services.

• 10+ years in…