Sr Applied Machine Learning Engineer

Job Description

Sr Applied Machine Learning Engineer (Personalization)

Applied Machine Learning Engineers and Data Scientists on the Disney Streaming Machine Learning and Innovation team develop and maintain recommendation and personalization algorithms for Disney Streaming's suite of streaming video apps, notably Disney+ and Hulu. They specialize in applying machine learning methods to meet strategic product personalization goals, explore innovative, cutting edge techniques that can be applied to recommendations, and constantly seek ways to optimize operational processes.

Responsibilities:

As a member of this team you will collaborate across Engineering, Product, and Data teams to better understand challenges and develop automated solutions to be built into our products. You will be expected to contribute to recommendation and personalization algorithm research, development, and optimization for particular product areas, and to coordinate requirements and manage stakeholder expectations with product, engineering, and editorial teams.
- Algorithm development and maintenance: Utilize cutting edge machine learning methods to develop algorithms for personalization, recommendation, and other predictive systems; maintain algorithms deployed to production and be the point person in explaining methodologies to technical and non-technical teams
- Analysis and Algorithm Optimization: Perform deep dive analysis on app interactions and user profiles as they relate to algorithm output in order to drive improvements in key personalization metrics
- MVP development : Develop innovative machine learning products to be used for new production features or downstream by production algorithms
- Development Best Practices: Maintain existing and establish new algorithm development, testing, and deployment standards
- Collaborate with product and business stakeholders: Identify and define new personalization opportunities and work with other data teams to improve how we do data collection, experimentation and analysis

Basic Qualifications:
• 3+ years of analytical experience
• 3+ years of experience developing machine learning models and performing data analysis with Python or R
• 2+ years writing production-level, scalable code (e.g. Python, Scala)
• 2+ years of experience developing algorithms for deployment to production systems
• In-depth understanding of modern machine learning (e.g. deep learning methods), models, and their mathematical underpinnings
• In-depth understanding of the latest in natural language processing techniques and contextualized word embedding models
• Experience with cloud services in a production environment (particularly AWS)
• Familiarity with data exploration and data visualization tools like Tableau, Looker, Chartio, etc.
• Understanding of statistical concepts (e.g., hypothesis testing, regression analysis)
• Ability to gauge the complexity of machine learning problems and a willingness to execute simple approaches for quick, effective solutions as appropriate
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to explain how models are used and algorithms behave to both technical and non-technical audiences

Preferred Qualifications:
• MS or PhD in statistics, math, computer science, social science, or related quantitative field
• Production experience with developing content recommendation algorithms at scale
• Production experience with graph based models (e.g. node2vec)
• Experience building and deploying full stack ML pipelines: data extraction, data mining, model training, feature development, regression testing, testing and deployment
• Experience with graph-based data workflows such as Apache Airflow
• Experience engineering big-data solutions using technologies like EMR, S3, Spark, Databricks
• Familiar with metadata management, data lineage, and principles of data governance
• Experience loading and querying cloud-hosted databases such as Snowflake
• Building streaming data pipelines using Kafka, Spark, or Flink
• Familiarity with automated deployment, AWS infrastructure, Docker or similar containers

Required Education
• Bachelor's degree in statistics, math, computer science, social science or related quantitative field

Additional Information:

Location - New York, NY preferred but also open to US Remote for the right candidate

#DisneyTech

This role is considered hybrid, which means the employee will work a portion of their time on-site from a Company designated location and the remainder of their time remotely. A remote opportunity may be possible for qualified candidates under certain circumstances and, if granted, the employee would work remotely on an ongoing basis.

About Disney Streaming:

Comprised of the Company's international business units and various direct-to-consumer streaming services, Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution (DMED) aligns technology, media distribution and advertising sales into a single business segment to create and deliver personalized entertainment experiences to consumers around the world.

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 with the following business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment, consumer products and interactive media. 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 Streaming.

Disney Streaming Technology LLC is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or protected veteran status. Disney fosters a business culture where ideas and decisions from all people help us grow, innovate, create the best stories and be relevant in a rapidly changing world.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-d5w850-18-223-106-100-42 in your application.