Senior Principal Technical Program Manager

Technology is at the heart of Disney’s past, present, and future. Disney Entertainment and 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:

The Senior Principal Technical Program Manager is a staff position within the DEE Technology: Business Operations – Technical Program Management organization. The Senior Principal Technical Program Manager will focus on planning and executing programs of the highest complexity and priority that cut across the DE&E Tech organization, other Disney technology organizations, and external joint venture partners. This role develops and executes functional strategy and plans to achieve key business objectives. The position will be involved in significant work efforts of strategic importance to the organization. Decisions and actions may impact the way work efforts are run and performed. The program’s overall capital budget could range from 20 million to 100+ million.

This position requires expert experience in program, process, and operations management, serving as a subject matter expert for guidance across the entire Technical Program Management team and organization. Ideal candidates must be highly proactive, comfortable with ambiguity, detail-oriented, and able to work autonomously on multiple assignments. This role requires proactively identifying and solving some of the most complex technical initiatives that impact the direction of the business. This position requires someone who can influence and negotiate with great latitude on outcomes, present and defend complicated or delicate issues, and exercise sensitivity based on the audience. This position will interact with internal and external peers and management to share highly complex information related to areas of expertise. This role will regularly interact with leaders and executives across the company.

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

The role will require constant balance between long term product vision along with addressing immediate needs, driving an incremental approach that is metrics and data driven. It will require communicating effectively with senior executive leaders on a regular basis while ensuring that the teams are aligned, and stakeholders are aware of key performance indicators.

Key job responsibilities

• Will be at the forefront of delivering highly complex, industry leading initiatives that will have broad impacts on the Walt Disney company’s overall success
• Responsible for staying connected to the details and nuances that make up the program you are responsible for, regardless of where they stem from.
• Solving complex technical problems, setting clear program goals, and resolving conflicts
• Diving deep into technical platforms and their architecture, and understanding the impacts of decisions that are made in the near and long term
• Knowing when to slow down and build scalable platform capabilities versus speeding up and accruing tech debt to reach a specific goal or objective
• Articulating complex technical architecture in a simplistic form and presenting it to both technical and business stakeholders
• Being a thought partner to any role within the company – marketing, product, design, engineering, and program, while also influencing large organizations to meet a collective objective.
• Understanding legal stipulations and boundaries and being able to proactively gauge the impact of any mandates to a program’s objectives
• Delivering results despite working in an ambiguous and sometimes highly demanding environment
• Exhibiting a strong bias for action and being able to handle multiple priorities simultaneously
• Defining strategy and turning them into executable road maps for the programs you own
• Responsible for overall coordination, quality, and productivity and will be the primary point of contact for world-wide stakeholders of programs that you run
• Consistently internalize Disney’s Leadership Principles, and live those into everyday practices to guide your programs and teammates to success
• Focusing on fiscal responsibility and ensuring that spend is accurately tracked, programs are within the allocated budget, and that any variances are clearly articulated and justified
• Leading the charge on defining and exhibiting program management excellence, with the goal of maturing the overall organization’s capabilities
• Communicating frequently to all levels of the organization and being the source of truth for program health
• Exemplifying leadership characteristics through collaboration, work ethic, and creative thinking. Strive to inspire others and deliver the best possible outputs.

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

Minimum

• 12+ years of experience managing large-scale, strategic, high-priority software development programs in a well-established global technology organization.
• Expert ability to facilitate effective communication across disparate teams
• Expertise in Agile or Waterfall program management methods that may include Scrum, Kanban, and Scaled Agile.
• Strong organizational and time-management skills
• Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills, with a knack for fostering collaboration and an ability to synthesize information for high-level decision-makers
• Evidence of stellar planning, delivery, and problem-solving skills
• Superb written and verbal communication, presentation skills, and meeting facilitation skills (especially when working with senior leadership)
• BA/BS or equivalent experience required; MBA preferred.