Principal Tech Program Manager

Job Summary:

On any given day at Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology (DEET), we’re reimagining ways to create magical viewing experiences for the world’s most beloved stories while also transforming Disney’s 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 improve 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.

• Building the future of Disney’s media business: DE&E Technologists are designing and building the infrastructure that will power Disney’s 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 complete groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms and enhance how audiences experience sports, entertainment & news.

Business Operations is the glue of DE&E Technology, with a persistent focus on connecting all the pieces of the business. All the components that make up the organization – engineering, product, design, operations, support and more – come together and move the business forward with oversight, effective prioritization, and guidance. This team synthesizes information from across the business to ensure leaders are armed with all the necessary data before making strategic and financial decisions. From forecasting, funding, tracking, and reporting on projects, to ways of working, and resource management, Business Operations has transparency and input into all aspects of the team. 

This is a Principal Technical Program Manager position within the DE&E Technology: Business Operations – Global Program Management organization. The Principal Technical Program Manager will focus on the planning and execution of cross pillar programs that focus on scaling technology that empowers our streaming services to deliver our content to audiences worldwide efficiently. The position is responsible for the one time and seamless delivery of their initiative, will assist in triage of other initiatives and will also be seen as a subject matter expert and go to person for guidance in GPM. 

This position requires proven experience as an expert in program management, managing large scale initiatives. Ideal candidates must be highly proactive, detail-oriented, possess the ability to comfortably work through unknowns, identify paths to success to ensure delivery, and able to autonomously work on multiple assignments that span the department. They must be capable of digging into technical details and clearly communicating schedules, risks, status, and processes to a variety of business and technical audiences. We are looking for candidates that are proficient in technology, are used to moving quickly, can adapt to change, and places an emphasis on learning and collaborating.

Responsibilities:

• Accountable for the delivery of projects from concept to completion by collaborating with engineering teams, product management and developing detailed project plans from development to deployment
• Develop delivery timelines of feature sets for projects, and partner across various workstreams and business leaders to sequence the work based on priorities
• Track team progress against deliverables and work with the team to identify solutions to get back on-track when the team falls behind schedule and be seen as a source of truth
• Exhibit significant influence across various workstreams and pillars and serve as a subject matter expert and go to person to solve problems
• Facilitate technical meetings; follow the discussions in order to summarize and capture outcomes
• Be a leader when it comes to collaborating across various teams and work disciplines
• Lead teams in understanding cross-team dependencies, prioritize the work to avoid impediments, identify single points of failure for discussion and decision 
• Lead project meetings and communicate program progress against defined milestones and delivery risks to various levels of executive leadership.
• Ensure transparency of progress and issues/risks. Proactively drive risk mitigation and contingency planning, along with issue resolution
• Ensure that all involved parties understand and accept their roles and responsibilities
• Track and report key program metrics, informing stakeholders as appropriate
• Comfort in prioritizing multiple team requests and balance that against other priorities and committed work. Must understand the impact of injecting these requests to the team’s backlog.
• Partner with finance teams to integrate all activity against milestones to not only spend but also cost savings both projected and recognized 
• Independently manage activities and resolve conflict within associated teams, with minimal influence from management
• Effectively present issues with supporting data to help drive discussions to resolve conflict
• Effortlessly sift through “noise” and facilitate discussions and activities with a laser focus towards results
• Exemplify leadership characteristics through collaboration, work ethic, and creative thinking. Strive to inspire others and deliver the best possible outputs.

Qualifications :

• 10+ years of experience managing large-scale, strategic, software development programs in a well-established global technology organization
• Experience working with engineering teams, hardware and application lifecycle delivery, and release management.
• Experience working with stakeholders to understand requirements, prioritize initiatives, and engage with engineering teams to drive projects forward.
• Have in-depth experience executing infrastructure and hardware procurement and implementation methodologies.
• Have mastered industry-standard project management tools such as Confluence, JIRA, Airtable, Smartsheets, Keynote, Powerpoint and Excel.
• Proven experience in working in complex, matrixed environment managing multiple stakeholders
• Strong ability to articulate complex processes
• Demonstrated ability with Agile project management in a hands-on role. Good skills and knowledge of servant leadership, conflict resolution, continual improvement, empowerment, and growing transparency
• 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)
• Experience in leading teams through improvement through process re-engineering
• Excellent people management skills, including the ability to influence various audience and various levels
• Demonstrated tenacity and comfortable with ambiguity
• Must understand the impact of injecting requests to the team’s backlog
• Mastery in Agile or Waterfall Project Management methods that may include Scrum, Kanban, and/or Scaled Agile
• Learn quickly and enthusiastically, particularly about technical systems and issues.

The hiring range for this position in New York, NY is $175,800.00 to $235,700.00 per year and in Santa Monica, CA and Bristol, CT is $167,700.00 to $224,900.00 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.