Senior Product Manager

On any given day at Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology, we’re reimagining ways to create magical viewing experiences for the world’s most beloved stories while also transforming our media business for the future. Whether that’s evolving our streaming and digital products in new and immersive ways, powering worldwide advertising and distribution to enhance flexibility and efficiency, or delivering Disney’s unmatched entertainment and sports content, every day is a moment to make a difference to partners and to hundreds of millions of people around the world.

A few reasons why we think you’d love working here:

• Building the future of Disney’s media: DE&E Technologists are designing and building the infrastructure that will power our media, advertising, and distribution businesses for years to come.
• Reach & Scale: The products and platforms this group builds and operates delight millions of consumers every minute of every day – from Disney+ and Hulu, to ABC News and Entertainment, to ESPN and ESPN+, and much more.
• Innovation: We develop and implement groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms and enhance how audiences experience sports, entertainment & news.

Content Operations is ultimately responsible for successfully delivering Disney’s entertainment and sports content to millions of people every day. This involves developing, operating, and managing a global content supply chain – the myriad of steps involved from taking a finalized TV show/movie, or live piece of content, from inside Disney to audiences around the globe, in their preferred language and format. This team also leads technology operations in Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

As a member of the Product Management team, you will have the opportunity to dive deep into the business capabilities and learn the processes behind how Disney's top tier content is planned to how it is delivered to consumers and everything in between. Your responsibilities include capturing & prioritizing business requirements and translating that into product specifications. Working in a cross-functional team environment with design, engineering, infrastructure, QA, and other product managers, you will help reimagine the product for the future business of The Walt Disney Company, with focus on enhancing automation, driving operational improvements, and supporting the acceleration of our content businesses.

Content Platforms’ Data & Platforms team is responsible for the tools and services that enable AI/ML to enrich metadata, enable new consumer features, and automate complex media workflows. As Product Manager, you will support platform capabilities and strategy for the data that trains our machine learning models. Your objective is to empower AI/ML data scientists and data engineering to deliver high quality results from best-in-class models. You will work in a team of other product managers that share ownership of the data platforms product roadmap, ensure that we are meeting business needs, expand our user base, and build out new features and capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Working closely with data science and engineering to define, lead, and refine ML results
• Collaborate with business partners and cross-functional teams to identify and clearly define business requirements
• Align business partners and cross-functional teams on product vision and strategy
• Exhibit natural and intuitive user compassion
• Can clearly articulate product strategy and lead business partners expectations accordingly
• Make thoughtful, well documented assumptions
• Assist in process alignment and standardization
• Own product management for a distinct Product/Platform in ML domain
• Support definition of Product Strategy in ML
• Define and align Product Roadmaps, clearly communicating the connection between vision, strategy, objectives, and roadmap
• Own definition of cost/benefit analysis and prepare lean business case
• Derive realistic product targets / KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) (with help for complex products)
• Active use of product frameworks and tools to document information in a structured way (user journey maps, flow, information architecture, etc.)
• Lead business partner engagements to analyze the value proposition of business requests and provide alternative solutions, as needed to ensure we stay consistently focused on the product strategy
• Lead maintenance and prioritization of product backlog, ensuring clear, well aligned & justified prioritization within your area of responsibility
• Guide team through selecting, crafting, and validating effective solutions for problems (with help for complex problems)
• Slice solutions to a viable minimum product that effectively solve prioritized requirements
• Key participant of daily scrum meetings, planning, reviews, and retrospectives
• Lead Retrospectives, as needed
• Own User Acceptance Test (UAT) Scripts
• Own User Acceptance Testing (UAT), working in collaboration with Operations & Change Management
• Coordinate major product releases
• Own system processes, user guides, and training materials on product features where needed
• Collaborate, partner and coordinate with cross-functional teams (engineering, design, QA, and product leadership) to streamline product features and enhance business processes
• Partner with engineering and program managers to implement solutions aligned with the product strategy and Content Platforms strategic goals
• Mentor junior product managers
• Support any other activities / duties to help achieve business goals

Basic Qualifications

• 5 years of related experience
• Demonstrate strong product experience and knowledge of current ML trends
• Self-starter and can work independently under time constraints and meet deadlines
• Demonstrate strong presentation and ability to clearly communicate goals, status, and issues
• Demonstrate strong technical writing skills
• Demonstrate ability to derive actionable insights or alternative solutions through research
• Demonstrate understanding of how to combine qualitative and quantitative data sources
• Efficiently support experimentation execution and analysis, such as proof of concepts
• Demonstrate ability to define Product Roadmaps
• Demonstrate understanding of architecture and dependencies of the product domain
• Demonstrate understand of business modeling and analysis via structured cost/benefit analysis
• Demonstrate understand and ability to write and prioritize user stories
• Demonstrate ability to adjust and pivot as business strategy and product priorities shifts
• Experienced in leading and/or facilitating business workshops
• Experienced in presenting and translating product features across all functional areas (Design, Engineering, Marketing, QA, Change Management, and Project Management)
• Exhibits a clear understanding of and in-depth experience in development process, methodologies, and tools
• Be a resoruce to provide guidance to junior team members
• Exhibits an appreciation and experience in incorporating data science and analytics in comprehensive product solutions
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience or military service

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in media & entertainment industry and digital/mobile environment
• Exposure or experience with Agile development tools, such as Jira and Confluence
• Prior work experience in Product and/or Operations and or Data Science
• Knowledge of or experience in media & entertainment industry
• Passion and interests in Disney brands
• Understanding of media production workflows, digital video workflows, or consumer-facing video product features

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 champions a business environment where ideas and decisions from all people help us grow, innovate, create the best stories and be relevant in a constantly evolving world.

The hiring range for this position in California is $136,100 to $182,400 per year based on a 40 hour work week. The amount of hours scheduled per week may vary based on business needs. 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.