Staff Software Engineer - Backend + ML

JOB SUMMARY: As a Staff Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in building an end-to-end ML lifecycle with scale. Our recommendation engine creates personalized home page experiences for millions globally, adapting to user interests in real time. Leveraging ML algorithms and A/B testing, we continuously refine our recommendations. You'll thrive here if you're passionate about tackling complex technical challenges using big data, ML models, and building scalable services.

ABOUT THE TEAM: At Disney+ Hotstar, we're on a mission to deliver delightful experiences to our 500+ million customers across the globe. Our technology spans 25+ countries, with more on the horizon. The Customer Experience (CEX) team manages the entire customer journey, from signup to personalized content viewing on a wider range of consumer devices. Our fast and intuitive experiences cater to different user segments, including mobile, tablet, and living room viewers. Backed by distributed services, we innovate through experimentation and data-driven decisions.

The Discovery Team focuses on revolutionizing content discovery. The aim is to provide users with an intuitive and personalized experience, enabling seamless exploration and enrichment of their interests. Collaborating with developers, data scientists, designers, and curators, we enhance algorithms and recommendation systems. By analyzing user preferences and behaviors, we deliver immersive content discovery.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Serves as the functional lead, possesses deep knowledge of core systems, and takes full responsibility for the team's code, design, and project delivery, ensuring high quality and on-time completion
• Responsible for end-to-end Machine Learning Lifecycle and working with a diverse range of frameworks & technologies from Big data frameworks like Spark, Flink, Kafka, etc to ML frameworks like TensorFlow serving
• Design and implement low-latency caching and storage solutions
• Build stream processing pipelines to compute near real-time features that will help us serve real-time recommendations for our users
• You will continuously evaluate relevant technologies, influence, and drive architecture and design discussions
• Tackles complex technical challenges independently for complex systems, demonstrating technical depth and proficiency
• Collaborate with Product Managers and cross-functional teams to understand requirements and deploy high-quality software solutions that meet business objectives

SKILLS & ATTRIBUTES FOR SUCCESS:

• Strong coding skills in Python, Java, Golang, or Scala
• Experience with Big Data frameworks like Spark and Kubernetes for data and ML workloads
• Proficient in implementing API performance monitoring solutions using tools such as Grafana, Prometheus, and Cloudwatch
• Skilled in developing end-to-end machine learning pipelines ensuring consistency between development and production environments
• Ability to design scalable ML architectures tailored to site traffic and feature complexity for predictive algorithms
• Familiar with model and data versioning, resource allocation and scaling, and logging to build optimal systems
• Experienced in creating systems that monitor and react to faults in resources, data streams, and model responses
• Expertise with MLOps tools for scalable, production-level deployment, including feature stores, model hosting and versioning, data versioning, prediction and drift monitoring, and automated remediation
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to work effectively in a fast-paced environment
• Commitment to continuous learning and professional development

ABOUT US: Disney Star is a leading media & entertainment company in India that reaches over 700 million viewers a month in nine different languages. Our entertainment portfolio which cuts across general entertainment, movies, sports, infotainment, kids, and lifestyle content generates over 20,000 hours of original content every year. Disney+ Hotstar, India’s leading streaming platform, enables us to reach and entertain audiences anywhere, anytime. Disney+ Hotstar has changed the way Indians consume their entertainment - from their favorite TV shows and movies to sporting extravaganzas.

Join us, and let's continue to inspire a billion imaginations.

WHY JOIN US: Because our employees and cast members are at the heart of everything we do, Disney offers a competitive total rewards package that includes pay, health and savings benefits, time-off programs, special educational opportunities, and more. Together, these rewards make up a comprehensive package that helps our employees grow personally and professionally and take advantage of the special extras that only Disney STAR can offer to make their journey memorable.