Software Engineer II

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology

Technology is at the heart of Disney’s past, present, and future. Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology (DEEP&T) 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.

The Business Operations team helps guide and articulate technology strategy and research, and is responsible for driving the day-to-day operation of the Product & Technology organization, including: project and portfolio management and tracking; organization-level capital, space, and resource management and allocation; process management; technical incident management; and our administrative and workplace experience support team. 

Job Summary:

We are looking for an AI Engineer to help build and support enterprise Generative AI applications. This role will contribute to our conversational AI platform for enabling natural language interaction with enterprise operational data.

The role focuses on hands on GenAI application engineering, including Python development, retrieval and grounding workflows, prompt design, conversational AI support, and backend service integration. It also includes direct exposure to production GenAI practices, including LLMOps across evaluation, observability, deployment support, agentic workflows, tool calling, MCP style integrations, and production troubleshooting.

The ideal candidate can build, debug, learn quickly, use AI developer tools effectively, and contribute to reliable production GenAI systems. Azure experience is a plus.

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

Technical Leadership & Expertise

• Build and maintain Python based GenAI application components
•  Connect conversational AI workflows with backend services, web applications, and internal tools
•  Implement retrieval and grounding workflows that support source backed AI responses
•  Develop prompt logic, response formatting, structured outputs, and validation patterns
•  Assist with document ingestion, semantic chunking, metadata handling, and retrieval testing
•  Support agentic workflows involving tool use, function calling, API actions, and multi step reasoning
•  Learn and contribute to MCP style integration patterns for connecting AI systems to tools, data, and enterprise services
•  Support LLMOps practices, including observability, logging, monitoring, evaluation, latency tracking, cost tracking, and production troubleshooting
•  Help create and maintain validation datasets, regression tests, and response quality review workflows
•  Assist with deployment support, environment configuration, and operational documentation
•  Use AI developer tools such as Cursor, Claude Code, or similar tools as part of the required engineering workflow to improve velocity, code understanding, testing, and documentation quality
•  Work with senior engineers to improve reliability, maintainability, and transparency of GenAI systems

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

Basic Qualifications

• 3+ years of professional software development experience
• Strong Python development skills
•  Hands on experience or project work with GenAI applications or conversational AI systems
•  Familiarity with retrieval based GenAI patterns, grounding, embeddings, vector search, and prompt engineering
•  Experience integrating APIs and backend services
•  Hands on exposure to MCP, tool calling, function calling, or agentic integration patterns
•  Exposure to cloud application development in Azure, AWS, or GCP
•  Ability to read logs, investigate issues, and troubleshoot application behavior
•  Working knowledge of LLMOps concepts, including evaluation, observability, monitoring, deployment support, and production AI system reliability
•  Required use of AI assisted developer tools such as Cursor, Claude Code, or similar tools to support development velocity, documentation, code review preparation, and technical problem solving
• Bachelor’s degree required

Preferred Qualifications

Frontend depth and platform experience

• Experience with Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Foundry, Azure Functions, Azure App Service, or Application Insights
•  Experience with Microsoft Teams bots or enterprise conversational interfaces
•  Familiarity with Snowflake Cortex, Cortex Analyst, semantic views, or natural language to SQL workflows
•  Experience with MongoDB, Atlas Vector Search, or graph databases
•  Experience testing AI responses against expected answers, source data, or user feedback
•  Exposure to CI/CD, Docker, telemetry, and deployment pipelines
•  Interest in secure enterprise AI patterns, grounding, access control, and responsible AI behavior

The hiring range for this position in Seattle, WA is $123,000.00 to $165,000.00 per year, and in Glendale, CA is $117,500.00 to $157,500.00 per year. The base pay actually offered will take into account internal equity and also may vary depending on the candidate’s geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors. A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to the full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the level and position offered.