Lead Software Engineer - AI Core Engineering (Glendale)

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology

Technology is at the heart of Disneys 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 Disneys media business globally.

The team marries technology with creativity to build worldclass products, enhance storytelling, and drive velocity, innovation, and scalability for our businesses. We work with every part of The Walt Disney Companys media portfolio to advance the technological foundation and consumer media touch points serving millions of people around the world.

Building the future of Disneys 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, Disneys technology and products serve as a signature doorway for fans connections with the companys brands and stories. These products and brands and the unmatched stories, storytellers, and events they carry matter to millions of people globally. Ad Platforms is responsible for Disneys industryleading ad technology and products driving advertising performance, innovation, and value in Disneys sports, news, and entertainment content, across all media platforms.

Were hiring a Lead Software Engineer to drive the design, development, and scaling of AI Core Capabilities that accelerate AI adoption across Ad Technology. You will guide the creation of shared agents, registries, initializers, and webbased solutions, ensuring that AI integration is consistent, safe, and efficient across the organization.

This role blends handson engineering with technical leadership: youll set patterns, mentor senior engineers, and collaborate with infra, data, and product teams to ensure AI is delivered using shared AI capabilities, governance, observability, and enterprisegrade quality.

Define reference designs and best practices for reusable AI agents, services, and webapps.

Deliver APIs and frameworks that simplify integration with AI services and enterprise systems.

Develop highquality APIs and SDKs that simplify adoption of AI capabilities by other engineering teams.

Work with product, infra, and security leaders to accelerate AI adoption across Disney Ad Tech.

Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field (Masters preferred), or equivalent experience.

~7+ years of software engineering experience, with 1+ years in technical leadership roles.

~ Strong proficiency in Python and backend frameworks; experience building scalable APIs and SDKs.

~ Experience integrating with enterprise AI services such as AWS Bedrock or Azure AI Foundry.

~ Strong knowledge of AI safety, governance, and evaluation practices.

~ able to explain complex technical concepts to both engineers and nontechnical stakeholders.

~ Experience conducting code reviews and enforcing best practices for maintainability, security, and performance.

~ Proven ability to mentor and coach engineers, providing feedback, guidance, and technical growth opportunities.

~ Experience with system design and architecture discussions, including tradeoff analysis.

~ Demonstrated ability to collaborate across functions (infra, data, security, product) to align on shared solutions.

Experience building AI enablement frameworks (registries, initializers, reusable components).

Familiarity with observability and tracing for AI systems (latency, cost, quality).

Knowledge of AI gateway patterns (routing, throttling, fallback, quotas).

Prior experience in developer enablement or platform engineering roles with broad organizational impact.

Skilled at writing technical documentation, design RFCs, and standards for broader adoption.

Track record of influencing engineering culture by raising quality bars, introducing new practices, and driving adoption.

Demonstrated ability to balance handson coding with technical leadership and mentoring.

The base pay actually offered will take into account internal equity and may vary depending on the candidates geographic region, jobrelated knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors. A bonus and/or longterm incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to the full range of medical, financial, and other benefits, dependent on the level and position offered.

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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 Link opens in new window. 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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