Sr Applied Data Scientist - AI/ML

Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) is home to some of the world’s most beloved films and television series. From Cobra Kai to The Night Agent, our content reaches millions worldwide. Behind the scenes, our Insights, Strategy & Analytics (ISA) team empowers storytellers and business leaders with data-driven insights to shape the future of entertainment.

We are seeking a Senior Applied Data Scientist – AI/ML to join our team. This role blends expertise in data science, applied research in AI/ML, and MLOps/engineering to design, deploy, and scale AI-driven solutions. You will be at the forefront of applying advanced ML and generative AI techniques to SPE’s content, marketing, and distribution businesses — while ensuring robust production systems and pipelines to bring these solutions to life.  You will design frameworks to evaluate and retrain AI systems, implement agentic flows to accelerate workflows, and drive adoption of responsible AI practices across Sony Pictures.

What You’ll Do

• Design and develop machine learning models (including classification models, time series forecasting, clustering, and regressions) that drive impact
• Develop frameworks to improve data science methodologies
  • Eg. Transforming unstructured free-text data into structured insights for sales, marketing, and production teams
  • Eg. Enable no-code stakeholder integrations, embedding custom data science models into tools like Excel for easy adoption by non-technical users.
• Partner with data scientists, cloud ops, and MLOps supporting teams to productionalize models in cloud environments
  • Build and optimize data pipelines and model training workflows to ensure robust monitoring, explainability, and reproducibility.
  • Implement best practices in model governance — versioning, bias detection, interpretability, and responsible AI.
  • Develop dashboards to track model performance and data quality.
  • Recommend, onboard, and implement any necessary tools or frameworks to strengthen our AI lifecycle management.
• Lead roadmapping and application of LLMs and generative AI techniques (prompt engineering, fine-tuning, embeddings) to solve challenges in content analysis, metadata enrichment, and workflow automation.
  • Lead feature engineering with Gen AI, (eg. genre tagging)
  • Design accuracy and retraining frameworks for generative AI (multi-LLM evaluation, manual training sets, human-in-the-loop workflows).
• Mentor team members on AI engineering best practices, promoting a culture of continuous learning and innovation.
• Stay at the forefront of emerging AI technologies, evaluating new tools and frameworks to enhance SPE’s capabilities, and sharing knowledge across the team

What We’re Looking For

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, or a related field; Master’s preferred.
• 8+ years of applied experience in AI/ML, data science, or related roles.
• Strong proficiency in Python and SQL, with expertise in ML frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn, XGBoost).
• Strong knowledge and experience with traditional data science techniques, such as classification and regression
• Hands-on experience with MLOps tools (Airflow, Docker, Kubernetes, MLflow, SageMaker, Kubeflow).
• Proven track record of deploying and maintaining ML/AI models in production environments.
• Solid understanding of generative AI (LLMs, embeddings, fine-tuning) and open-source ecosystems (Hugging Face, LangChain, etc.).
• Experience designing and implementing CI/CD workflows for ML systems.
• Hands-on experience with agentic AI systems — designing, deploying, or evaluating frameworks such as LangChain agents, crew.ai, and MCP (Model Context Protocol).
• Strong problem-solving skills, attention to detail, and ability to thrive in a fast-moving environment.
• Excellent communication skills — capable of collaborating across technical and non-technical teams.
• Highly collaborative, curious, and flexible. Comfortable working across both research exploration and production deployment.

Nice to have:

• Experience in the media & entertainment industry.
• Contributions to open-source AI/ML projects or publications.

Why Join Us

• Shape the future of entertainment by applying cutting-edge AI/ML solutions to content creation, distribution, and marketing.
• Work on high-impact Gen AI projects with global reach, influencing how millions of people discover and enjoy Sony content.
• Collaborate with a diverse, innovative team of engineers, scientists, and strategists.
• Be part of a culture that values curiosity, innovation, and continuous learning, with access to professional development and emerging AI tools.
• Enjoy the benefits of working at a global studio while contributing to projects that matter.

The anticipated base salary for this position is $130K to $170K. This role may also qualify for annual incentive and/or comprehensive benefits. The actual base salary offered will depend on a variety of factors, including without limitation, the qualifications of the individual applicant for the position, years of relevant experience, level of education attained, certifications or other professional licenses held, and if applicable, the location of the position.

Sony Pictures Entertainment is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, veteran status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other protected characteristics.

SPE will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records in accordance with applicable law.

To request an accommodation for purposes of participating in the hiring process, you may contact us at [email protected].