Disney Entertainment & ESPN Product & Technology

Technology is at the heart of Disney’s past, present, and future. Disney Entertainment & ESPN Product & Technology is a global organization of engineers, product developers, designers, technologists, data scientists, and more – all working to build and advance the technological backbone for Disney’s media business globally.

The team marries technology with creativity to build world-class products, enhance storytelling, and drive velocity, innovation, and scalability for our businesses. We are Storytellers and Innovators. Creators and Builders. Entertainers and Engineers. We work with every part of The Walt Disney Company’s media portfolio to advance the technological foundation and consumer media touch points serving millions of people around the world. 
 

Here are a few reasons why we think you’d love working here:

Building the future of Disney’s media: Our Technologists are designing and building the products and platforms that will power our media, advertising, and distribution businesses for years to come.

Reach, Scale & Impact: More than ever, Disney’s technology and products serve as a signature doorway for fans' connections with the company’s brands and stories. Disney+. Hulu. ESPN. ABC. ABC News…and many more. These products and brands – and the unmatched stories, storytellers, and events they carry – matter to millions of people globally. 

Innovation: We develop and implement groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms, and solve complex and distinctive technical problems.

The Business Operations team helps guide and articulate technology strategy and research, and is responsible for driving the day-to-day operation of the Product & Technology organization, including: project and portfolio management and tracking; organization-level capital, space, and resource management and allocation; process management; technical incident management; and our administrative and workplace experience support team.

Job Summary:

·         This is a staff position within the DE&E Product & Technology: Business Operations – Technical Program Management organization.

·         The Principal Technical Program Manager will focus on the planning and execution of programs of the highest complexity and priority across the Identity Alliance and between other Alliances. They often also assist with the triage of other programs to help form recommendations to senior leadership. 

·         This position requires expert experience in program management, serving as a subject matter expert for guidance in the discipline.

·         Ideal candidates must be highly proactive, detail-oriented, and able to autonomously work on multiple assignments.

·         They must be capable of attaining expertise in domain details and clearly communicate schedules, risks, status, and processes to a variety of business and technical audiences.

·         They must be able to partner with closely with other technical program managers and technical leads to coordinate schedules and deliverables.

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

·         Drive activities for large, strategic, technical programs of the highest complexity, risk, and strategic priority

·         Develop plans and timelines, accounting for all dependencies

·         Forecast and ensure transparency of progress and issues/risks. Proactively drive risk mitigation and contingency planning, along with issue resolution

·         Communicate status, updates, and program summaries via presentations, email, and direct communication with key stakeholders and executive leadership

·         Ensure that all involved parties understand and accept their roles and responsibilities and are held accountable to their deliverables

·         Facilitate all build activities (including QA), as per plan

·         Own and proactively drive, track, and report on budgets

·         Collaborate with other program management colleagues to coordinate activities across multiple technology teams

·         Strong understanding of all program domain technical components, including architecture, tools and deployment practices that development team is employing, including cross-system interactions and dependencies

·         Perform capacity planning for teams

·         Track and report key program metrics, informing stakeholders as appropriate

·         Partner with Product to facilitate advancement of intake pipeline, helping to triage programs to make recommendations to senior leadership

·         Serve as subject matter expert and "go to" person for guidance in program management discipline

·         Independently manage activities and resolve conflict within associated teams, with minimal influence from management

·         Effortlessly sift through “noise” and facilitate discussions and activities with a laser focus towards results

·         Navigate the TWDC to effectively drive progress, even when the scope of responsibilities may be unclear

·         Exemplify leadership characteristics through collaboration, work ethic, and creative thinking. Strive to inspire others and deliver the best possible outputs

·         Coordinate with external vendors, where applicable

·         May manage smaller teams of professional employees related to area of focus or expertise

·         Define, optimize, and manage Agile ceremonies and processes at the team-of-teams level

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

Basic Qualifications

·         10+ years of relevant experience

·         Proven ability to facilitate effective communication across disparate teams 

·         Evidence of strong planning, delivery, and problem-solving skills 

·         Superb written and verbal communications, presentation skills, and meeting facilitation skills (especially when working with senior leadership) 

Preferred Qualifications

·         Formal project management certifications 

Experience with:

·         Experience working in a media technology environment  

·         User access and authentication technology domain knowledge, or demonstrated aptitude for learning a technology-based engineering domain 

Required Education  

·         BA/BS or equivalent experience required 

The hiring range for this position in San Francisco is $187,900 to $252,000 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.