> Markdown version of [/jobs/ext/2641870-manager-applied-ai](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/jobs/ext/2641870-manager-applied-ai). Every page supports `.md` or `Accept: text/markdown`. Links point to the HTML versions so they work for humans too. Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md).

---

# Manager - Applied AI

- **Company:** The Walt Disney Company
- **Location:** Burbank, CA, United States
- **Experience:** Experienced
- **Salary:** $171,600.0 - $230,100.0
- **Contract:** Permanent contract
- **Skills:** Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Artificial Intelligence, BASIC (Programming Language), Information Systems, Cursor (Graphical User Interface Elements), SQL Databases, Large Language Models, Prompt Engineering, Information Technology, Codebase, Legacy Systems
- **Published:** August 22, 2026
- **Apply:** https://www.dice.com/job-detail/3f978822-c0bb-4c9e-930b-02ff46924804

## About the Role

* Minimum 8+ years of relevant experience
 * Minimum 2+ years? experience in a leadership-adjacent role: Engineering Manager, Technical Lead, Consulting Engagement Lead, Solutions Engineering lead, or equivalent
 * Experience with delivery of AI-powered products end-to-end. LLMs, agents, embeddings, classical ML
 * Working fluency with the modern AI application stack - in production: prompt design, RAG, tool-calling agents, eval harnesses
 * Data literacy. SQL, APIs, basic transformations. Enough to unblock yourself when an engagement stalls on a data question instead of waiting for the Data Engineer
 * Experience leading people - Direct reports, tech leads and/or engagement teams, * Experience building AI products without a dedicated engineering team backing you (ex. Startup Founder, Solutions Engineer, ?Solo-PM-who-ships? or any other environments where the gap between idea and production was yours to close
 * Prior experience with enterprise-scale data and legacy systems
 * Experience with golden datasets, trace analysis, LLM-as-judge

Education:

 * Bachelor?s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience

## Description

This role will be responsible for building a team of AI-native builders: engineers who treat Claude, Cursor, and whatever comes next as native collaborators; run a squad of 2?4 team members inside Disney\'s Applied AI Acceleration practice, taking ambiguous problems from our business partners and shipping AI-powered products that move the needle.

What matters most is that you speak and think in user problems and AI solutions. This isn\'t about building fast for its own sake. It\'s about knowing you\'re building the right thing for the user. The person across the table, not the ticket in the backlog. Engineers who know product are great. Product ninjas who know how to build are great. What we care about is that you deliver value to the business teams who need it most. The ones inside Disney who have had ?we should use AI for this? on a roadmap for two years and don\'t know where to start.

You\'re insatiably curious, high-collaboration. You\'re constantly building at the frontier, whether or not anyone\'s asked you to. And you lead by doing. This is a player-coach role; you\'ll be in the codebase with your team, shipping alongside them.

Responsibilities:

 * End-to-end delivery of 2?4 concurrent AI engagements with different Cadence - some get scoped and shipped in days; others take weeks.
 * Stand up a squad of 2?4 builders - Applied AI Engineers, a Squad Anchor or partnership with the Principal Applied AI Engineer, occasional Data Engineer or TPM pairing.
 * Review PRs in codebase, pairing on hard problems, picking up Cursor and working through the stuck parts.
 * The opening of every engagement: finding the real problem underneath the stated one, proving feasibility fast, and deciding what\'s worth shipping.
 * Stakeholder relationships across all levels of the organization - You translate between business outcomes and technical tradeoffs without losing nuance in either direction.
 * Pattern extraction. Every engagement yields at least one reusable component, playbook, or template that the practice can deploy on the next one.


## Related Videos

- [Getting to Know Your Legacy (System) with AI-Driven Software Archeology](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1437-getting-to-know-your-legacy-system-with-ai-driven-software-archeology)
- [Fault Tolerance and Consistency at Scale: Harnessing the Power of Distributed SQL Databases](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1146-fault-tolerance-and-consistency-at-scale-harnessing-the-power-of-distributed-sql-databases)
- [How to TDD in legacy code](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/309-how-to-tdd-in-legacy-code)
- [Navigating the AI Revolution in Software Development](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1266-navigating-the-ai-revolution-in-software-development)
- [Why your codebase lies to AI?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100281-why-your-codebase-lies-to-ai)
- [Big Business, Big Barriers? Stress-Testing AI Initiatives.](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1022-big-business-big-barriers-stress-testing-ai-initiatives)

## Related Articles

- [How to Become an AI Engineer](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/331-how-to-become-an-ai-engineer)
- [Navigating the AI Shift](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/629-navigating-the-ai-shift)
- [What Industries Outside of AI Are Hiring The Most AI Experts?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/98-what-industries-outside-of-ai-are-hiring-the-most-ai-experts)
- [MLOps – What’s the deal behind it?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/125-mlops-what-s-the-deal-behind-it)
- [MLOps And AI Driven Development](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/82-mlops-and-ai-driven-development)
- [What Are Large Language Models?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/304-what-are-large-language-models)