The Walt Disney Company · 1 day ago
Lead Software Engineer - AI Infrastructure & Tooling
Santa Monica, CA
Full-time
Onsite
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$156K/yr - $209K/yr
7+ years expThe Walt Disney Company is a global organization focused on building and advancing the technological backbone for Disney’s media business. As a Lead Software Engineer within DEEP&T, you will design and develop scalable software platforms and frameworks that enable automation and AI/ML capabilities across multiple products, leading a team of engineers to enhance productivity and reliability for Disney's digital applications.
TravelDigital MediaE-CommerceArt & CreativeLifestyleConsumer GoodsMedia and EntertainmentMarketingAmusement Park and ArcadeAnimationMulti-level MarketingPerforming ArtsResorts
Responsibilities
Develop and maintain internal tools, frameworks, and services that empower SDET teams to improve efficiency and scalability in quality engineering
Drive innovation in developer experience by creating reusable libraries, APIs, and automation services integrated into CI/CD workflows
Lead the end-to-end development and integration of AI/ML models and automation tools, ensuring they are production-ready, scalable, and maintainable
Architect, design, and implement software platforms and frameworks that use AI/ML to enable automation, monitoring, and productivity tools for SDET and product engineering teams
Providing strategic input, defining and contributing towards Objectives and Key Results, and partnering within and across the organization to achieve them
Leading and mentoring junior developers, providing meaningful insight, code reviews and technical direction across the team
Write and review high-quality, maintainable code for frameworks, infrastructure, and proof-of-concept solutions, setting engineering standards for the team
Leading communication for projects and overall team status within and across the organization
Keeping up with industry trends and new publicly available technologies, coming up with innovative ideas and solutions for complex technical problems
Serving as an advanced resource for other engineers on the team, training and helping others to contribute meaningful and impactful features and capabilities
Collaborate closely with Quality Engineering leadership to understand needs and deliver scalable tools and frameworks that enhance their capabilities
Stay current with emerging technologies and propose solutions that advance automation and developer experience
Qualification
Required
7 years of relevant software development experience, including experience integrating AI/ML into software platforms for automation and developer productivity
Bachelor's degree or equivalent in Computer Science or a closely related field or equivalent years of professional experience
Progressive experience in a software development (SDET or SWE) occupation, including developing unit tests and/or automated testing of front end and backend services
Experience building developer productivity tools or automation frameworks
Proficient in object-oriented design and expertise with Python, Java and/or Node/JavaScript
Experience leading teams of software engineers and/or SDETs
Experience working with high-performing teams using Agile and Lean methodologies
Experience in modern design patterns and techniques, deriving and gathering quality KPI's to give insight into product's health and progress
Preferred
Experience shipping production Python, Flask, Django, React or Node.js applications
Experience training custom AI/ML models, validating LLM/LVLM performance and accuracy
Experience with developing and deploying applications in cloud platforms (e.g. AWS) and optimizing cost efficiency
Experience with Kafka, Amazon SQS, SageMaker, and Kinesis
Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, Spinnaker, and continuous integration/delivery systems
Experience with testcase management (e.g. JIRA Xray), code management (e.g. git, SonarQube) and data visualization (e.g. Grafana, Data Dog) tools
Benefits
A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package
Full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits
Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company started as a cartoon studio and evolves into sports coverage and television shows.
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
The Walt Disney Company has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (83)
2024 (63)
2023 (96)
2022 (130)
2021 (30)
2020 (40)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$15BKey Investors
Citibank
2026-02-10Post Ipo Debt· $4B
2020-04-13Post Ipo Debt· $5B
2020-03-20Post Ipo Debt· $6B
Leadership Team
Jamie Power
SVP, Addressable Sales
Nick Lewerke
SVP/Head of Content Planning & Analysis, Disney Streaming
Recent News
Polygon.com - News
2026-02-12
Light Reading
2026-02-04
Company data provided by crunchbase