Lead Product Manager

Lead Product Manager

At Disney, we're storytellers. We make the impossible, possible. The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) is a world-class entertainment and technological leader. Walt's passion was to continuously envision new ways to move audiences around the world—a passion that remains our touchstone in an enterprise that stretches from theme parks, resorts and a cruise line to sports, news, movies and a variety of other businesses. Uniting each endeavor is a commitment to creating and delivering unforgettable experiences — and we're constantly looking for new ways to enhance these exciting experiences.

The Lead Product Manager will be responsible for product strategy, concept development, and defining and executing these initiatives in collaboration with our key stakeholders and partners. The role will understand business and technical capabilities, identify gaps and deliver product roadmaps for new capabilities.

A successful candidate will be highly collaborative, able to work extremely effectively in a matrix organization while wearing multiple hats, be comfortable working autonomously, and adept at synthesizing a variety of technologies and capabilities into high quality, simple products and applications.

As the subject matter expert for Disney Experiences (DX) Technology & Digital under Inventory & Sales Services, the role will be a liaison to development, implementation and support teams as well as support projects, enhancements, backlog and prioritization of features and capabilities.

The ideal candidate is a proactive self-starter with a knack for creating and executing a product vision, all while possessing a passion for learning. If you thrive on taking ownership, driving action, and contributing to the growth of product organizations, we want to hear from you!

What you will do:

• Lead creation of technical specification and user stories to enable system modification or development
• Works with project team, business and other stakeholders to align roadmaps and strategy, understand the business needs, define requirements, guide work, schedule it for release, validate stakeholder responses and provide feedback
• Ensures requirements are aligned to the business goals of the project and refined to a sufficient level of detail to allow Architects and Software Engineers to design, develop and implement appropriate solutions
• Identifies high level solution options for the business
• Reviews and signs off on solution designs, ensuring business requirements are verified, validated and delivered
• Combines business requirements into prioritized backlog grouped into project iterations in time to allow design/delivery to commence
• Manages the scope and traceability of requirements throughout the project lifecycle, ensuring that they are understood by the project team and met by the delivered solution
• Participates in functional design, construction and testing
• Ensures the benefits, impact and release of all changes are tracked and managed
• Ensures the required outcomes are built, tested, communicated, and delivered on time and within budget
• Provides technical guidance and oversight
• Leads complex analysis, providing guidance and oversight
• Develops and maintains relationships with business, vendor and technology stakeholders
• Provides thought leadership and asserts influence by driving complex projects to completion effectively and efficiently
• Provides subject matter expertise on the business, associated processes and systems
• Drives Agile standups, backlog grooming, planning
• Recommends process and technology improvements to increase the effectiveness of the product
• Manages project interdependencies in support of business strategies, roadmaps and financial commitments
• Escalates issues and recommends appropriate solutions
• Identifies product improvement opportunities by staying involved in product sustainment and customer feedback
• Mentors team members on application of best practices and standards
• Manages product roadmap in terms of prioritizing initiatives relative to business needs
• Works with the business to determine the real issue that needs to be solved or the opportunity to do things differently
• Develops highly complex business cases to ensure benefits align to strategic and tactical business objectives
• Supports the business in business, technical and financial feasibility assessments
• Manages partner expectations, scope and budget discussion
• Provides advice and recommendations on emerging trends which will be useful to both the business and IT in the delivery of the projects
• Manages business engagement and stakeholder management activities for large or complex projects
• Assists in identifying and managing risks, issues and dependencies

Required Qualifications & Skills:

• 7+ years of product management or equivalent experience driving product strategy and execution, with a technical focus
• Basic knowledge on Public Cloud Technologies like AWS
• Proven experience leading teams within an agile, collaborative environment.
• Demonstrated ability to identify, understand and drive resolution of complex critical issues
• Excellent analytical, written and verbal communication skills
• Previous experience with JIRA, Smartsheets, or similar tools
• Demonstrated success in launching and scaling products by recognizing customer needs, creating a vision, building roadmaps, identifying success measurements, and executing excellence with peers.
• Strong technical knowledge with experience leading large initiatives that span several teams and functional areas.
• Proven ability to translate customer and business needs through requirements and user stories.
• Strong communicator with proven ability to bring clarity and direction through written and verbal communication skills.
• Data and hypothesis-driven aptitude, with the ability to flex business and technical thinking.

Education:

Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Business Administration or similar field or related work experience

Nice to Have:

• Experience with back-end applications.
• Experience within hospitality and/or technology industries.
• Experienced in Microsoft Office applications.
• Familiarity with collaboration tools such as Jira, Smartsheet, and Confluence.
• Familiarity with design principles and best practices.

Onsite requirements/expectations:

• 3-4 days in office

The hiring range for this position in Orlando, Florida is $145,000-$175,000 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.