Sr Marketing Scientist

Marketing Science is an applied science team within The Walt Disney Studios Marketing organization. The team is interdisciplinary and cross-functional. Members of the team draw on knowledge and expertise from a wide range of academic disciplines, but primarily in areas related to applied mathematics and the social sciences, in order to advance data-driven marketing at The Walt Disney Studios. Depending on their backgrounds and interests, they may engage in market research, experimentation, forecasting, causal measurement, optimization, or data-related automation and data product development. Marketing Science is a part of The Walt Disney Studios Performance Marketing and is closely integrated with Performance Marketing operations. Members of the Marketing Science team generally learn about the advertising and marketing technologies that connect these operations in order to find opportunities to improve marketing effectiveness.

Role and Responsibilities:

Members of the Marketing Science team generally fall within one or more functional areas as described in the Analytics Specializations section below. A person in this role is an individual contributor who has already developed some expertise through meaningful experience in their functional areas so as to be able to carry efforts in those areas within at least one major project with less supervision. A person in this role is expected to be developing knowledge in media, marketing, and entertainment.

Statistics, Data Science, and Optimization Specialization

• Using knowledge of statistics, machine learning, and AI to solve technical and research problems, including problems related to experimental and research design
• Developing and interpreting the results of new formal models to forecast or predict business outcomes
• Developing and interpreting the results of new formal models (e.g; marketing mix models, attribution models, etc) to measure causal effects of marketing efforts or paid media
• Overseeing the maintenance and improvement of existing statistical and machine learning models
• Prototyping data pipelines or tools to automate the creation and/or deployment of knowledge gained from statistical models, machine learning models, or artificial intelligence
• Formulating and solving optimization problems
• Coordinating work with other science and technology teams at The Walt Disney Company
• Applying understanding of concepts and principles of optimization to evaluate and improve media and marketing performance
• Formulating and solving formal optimization problems
• Effectively leveraging big data and cloud computing technologies to address business questions

Marketing Measurement and Valuation Specialization:

• Troubleshooting problems with existing media measurement solutions, including problems that arise from changes in the martech or adtech measurement ecosystem (e.g. iOS14 update, cookie deprecation, etc.)
• Consulting with business stakeholders within TWDS media team (or adjacent teams within TWDS Marketing) to design business processes or campaign architectures that achieve better results on various media platforms including DSPs (DV360, The Trade Desk, Amazon DSP, etc.) or walled gardens (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, etc.)
• Consulting with business stakeholders within TWDS media team (or adjacent teams within TWDS Marketing) to precisely formulate media business problems that might benefit from data-driven solutions
• Using knowledge of media measurement—including, but not limited to knowledge of pixels, SDKs, server-to-server integrations, media platform APIs, and identity graphs—to design measurement solutions for media business problems
• Translating media business problems into formal problems that can be solved by technical teams
• Validating whether proposed solutions and existing products successfully address media business problems
• Overseeing design, execution, and analysis of A/B tests in order to evaluate the effectiveness of media / marketing exposure across different dimensions
• Designing, interpreting or otherwise using formal models (e.g. marketing mix models, attribution models) to measure causal effects of marketing or media
• Building financial valuation models of marketing or media performance in order to demonstrate the value created by application of scientific approaches or uncover additional areas for improvement
• Using concepts and principles of economics to better understand the effects of competition on marketing
• Using concepts and principles of economics or finance to better understand the effects of marketing on the lifetime value of movies

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Mathematics, Statistics, Data Science or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience
• 5+ years of experience in data science, economics, or quantitative methods
• Proficiency with Python and SQL
• Proficiency in performing exploratory quantitative analysis
• Proficiency in fitting, evaluating, and interpreting relevant statistical or machine learning models
• Demonstrated experience with acquiring, organizing, cleansing, manipulating, and merging large volumes of data
• Some demonstrated knowledge of economic models as well as a desire to learn more about
• Some demonstrated knowledge of the entertainment / media industries and a desire to learn about
• Familiarity with cloud computing services
• Familiarity with CI/CD and GitLab or GitHub

Preferred Qualifications

• Graduate degree (Master’s or Doctorate)—with significant graduate-level academic exposure to formal or quantitative methods and 3+ years of experience
• Advanced proficiency with SQL or Python
• Advanced proficiency with fitting, evaluating, and interpreting relevant statistical and machine learning models
• Demonstrated experience using big data technologies for data science—particularly Spark
• Proficiency in acquiring, organizing, cleansing, manipulating, and merging large volumes of data
• Familiarity with the martech and adtech ecosystem

Disability accommodation for employment applications

The Walt Disney Company and its Affiliated Companies are Equal Employment Opportunity employers and welcome all job seekers including individuals with disabilities and veterans with disabilities. If you have a disability and believe you need a reasonable accommodation in order to search for a job opening or apply for a position, email Candidate.Accommodations@Disney.com with your request. This email address is not for general employment inquiries or correspondence. We will only respond to those requests that are related to the accessibility of the online application system due to a disability.

The Walt Disney Company is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or protected veteran status. Disney fosters a business culture where ideas and decisions from all people help us grow, innovate, create the best stories and be relevant in a rapidly changing world.

The hiring range for this position in CA is $138,900.00 to $186,200.00 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.