Disney Entertainment and ESPN Technology Machine Learning Engineer Intern, Summer 2025
Apply Now Apply Later Job ID 10102866 Location Santa Monica, California, United States / Seattle, Washington, United States Business The Walt Disney Company (Corporate) Date posted Oct. 07, 2024Job Summary:
About the Role & Program
On any given day at Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology, we’re reimagining ways to create magical viewing experiences for the world’s most beloved stories while also transforming Disney’s media business for the future. Whether that’s evolving our streaming and digital products in new and immersive ways, powering worldwide advertising and distribution to maximize flexibility and efficiency, or delivering Disney’s unmatched entertainment and sports content, every day is a moment to make a difference to partners and to hundreds of millions of people around the world.
A few reasons why we think you’d love working for Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology:
Building the future of Disney’s media business: DE&E Technologists are designing and building the infrastructure that will power Disney’s media, advertising, and distribution businesses for years to come.
Reach & Scale: The products and platforms this group builds and operates delight millions of consumers every minute of every day – from Disney+ and Hulu, to ABC News and Entertainment, to ESPN and ESPN+, and much more.
Innovation: We develop and execute groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms and enhance how audiences experience sports, entertainment & news.
The approximate dates of this internship are May/June 2025 through August/September 2025.
By applying to this Machine Learning Engineering Internship position, you will be considered for opportunities across multiple teams and projects which are based in any of the following locations:
Santa Monica, CA
Seattle, WA
What You Will Do
Our team develops and maintains recommendation and personalization algorithms for Disney Streaming’s suite of streaming video apps, notably Disney+ and Hulu. As a member of this team you will collaborate across Engineering, Product, and Data teams to apply 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.
What you might do...
Algorithm Development and Maintenance: Utilize cutting edge machine learning methods to develop and implement 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
Feature Engineering and Optimization: Develop and maintain ETL pipelines using orchestration tools such as Airflow and Jenkins; deploy scalable streaming and batch data pipelines to support petabyte scale datasets
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
Required Qualifications & Skills
Knowledge or experience in developing machine learning models, performing large-scale data analysis, and/or data engineering experience
Experience writing scalable code (e.g. Python, Scala)
Basic understanding of modern machine learning (e.g. deep learning methods), models, and their mathematical underpinnings
Experience or knowledge of deploying and maintaining pipelines (AWS, Docker, Airflow) and in engineering big-data solutions using technologies like Databricks, S3, and Spark
Preferred Qualifications
Experience or knowledge of AWS, Docker, Airflow, Databricks
Experience or knowledge of building and deploying full stack ML pipelines: data extraction, data mining, model training, feature development, testing, and deployment
Familiar with metadata management, data lineage, and principles of data governance
Experience loading and querying cloud-hosted databases
Building streaming data pipelines using Kafka, Spark, or Flink
Education
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience
At the time of application, must be enrolled in an accredited college/university taking at least one class in the semester/quarter (spring/fall) prior to participation in the internship program AND returning to school the semester/quarter following the internship OR currently participating in a Disney College Program or Disney Internship.
Undergraduate students in their Junior or Senior year preferred
Candidates for this opportunity MUST meet all of the below requirements:
Be at least 18 years of age
Have not completed one year of continual employment on a Disney internship or program.
Possess unrestricted work authorization
Additional Information
The approximate dates of this internship are May/June 2025 through August/September 2025
Fully available from Monday - Friday, for the duration of the 12 week internship, 40 hours each week
Able to have a consistent, reliable work schedule throughout the internship
Able to provide own housing for the duration internship program in Santa Monica, CA and/or Seattle area
Able to provide/have reliable transportation to/from work
Recommendation: Save a copy of this internship role description to reference throughout the interview process
The pay rate for this role in Santa Monica, CA and Seattle, WA is $40 per hour. Select benefits may be provided as part of the compensation package, such as medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the level and position offered. To learn more about our benefits visit: https://jobs.disneycareers.com/benefits.
About The Walt Disney Company (Corporate):
At Disney Corporate you can see how the businesses behind the Company’s powerful brands come together to create the most innovative, far-reaching and admired entertainment company in the world. As a member of a corporate team, you’ll work with world-class leaders driving the strategies that keep The Walt Disney Company at the leading edge of entertainment. See and be seen by other innovative thinkers as you enable the greatest storytellers in the world to create memories for millions of families around the globe.
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 that includes three core business segments: Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and Disney Experiences. 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 HR Strategies & Services, LLC, which is part of a business we call The Walt Disney Company (Corporate).
Disney HR Strategies & Services, LLC is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, military or veteran status, medical condition, genetic information or disability, or any other basis prohibited by federal, state or local law. Disney champions a business environment where ideas and decisions from all people help us grow, innovate, create the best stories and be relevant in a constantly evolving world.
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