Principal Product Manager

Principal Product MgrTechnology 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.Product Management is responsible for driving the overall user experience, feature strategies and concepts, and engagement paradigms for Disney Entertainment & ESPN's global portfolio of consumer-facing streaming and digital products – including Disney+, Hulu, ESPN, ABC, ABC News, Nat Geo, Marvel, and Star Wars.Team Description:The Commerce Product team is responsible for the subscriber journey across our streaming portfolio - including Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN. We own acquisition, monetization, retention, and lifecycle experiences that serve millions of subscribers globally.Within Commerce, the Commerce Personalization team owns our ML-powered decisioning engine that personalizes offers, promotions, and recommendations across multiple subscriber touchpoints throughout the user journey.This role will drive strategy and execution of our unified commerce personalization engine across the full user journey. You'll partner closely with ML Engineering, Data Science, product, and Analytics teams to drive a three-track roadmap: model improvements, data expansion, and surface experiments.What You'll Do:Own personalization platform strategy and roadmap: Drive three parallel workstreams (model improvements, data expansion, surface experiments) to maximize subscriber lifetime value across key Commerce touchpointsDefine and socialize North Star metrics: Establish success criteria for all personalization experiments; ensure consistent measurement across surfacesPartner with ML/Data Science to build better models: Translate business problems into model requirements and success criteriaBuild new personalization capabilities: Spec and launch propensity models, cross-surface offer orchestration (decide where to show offers, not just what), and unauthenticated personalizationDesign and ship high-impact experiments: Run A/B tests across surfaces with clear LTV success criteria and guardrails (retention, revenue, and engagement)Ensure model quality and rigor: Establish randomization infrastructure, LTV-native model training, unbiased training data pipelines, and holdout groupsCoordinate cross-functionally without direct authority: Align with product, data science, analytics, and lifecycle/marketing teams on shared goals and experimentation frameworksPrioritize investment based on ROI: Determine trade-offs between model improvements vs. surface expansion using LTV impact dataCommunicate strategy and results to leadership: Present regular updates and business reviews on portfolio impact; write strategy memos with hypothesis-driven framing and validation gatesRequired Qualifications & Skills:10+ years of product management experience shipping consumer products at scale (millions of users)Proven track record partnering with Data Science/ML Engineering to build and ship production ML models (recommender systems, propensity models, ranking algorithms, personalization platforms)Deep understanding of A/B testing, experimentation frameworks, holdout design, statistical significance, and measuring incrementalityExperience with subscription businesses, pricing, promotions, lifecycle optimization, growth, or monetizationData-driven decision-making: comfortable defining success metrics, interpreting experiment results, making go/no-go decisions based on dataCross-functional leadership: ability to influence ML Engineering, Data Science, and surface PMs without direct authority; skilled at building consensus across competing prioritiesStrong stakeholder managementClear communicator: translates complex ML concepts into business language and vice versa; writes crisp strategy documents and presents effectively to leadershipExperience working in fast-paced, high-growth environments with ambiguous problem spacesPreferred Qualifications:Experience with ML serving infrastructure and personalization platforms (Metaflow, Kubeflow, or similar)Built recommendation or ranking systems at scale for complex, multi-SKU product surfacesWorked with prediction models to evaluate experiments or prioritize product investmentsExperience coordinating personalization across multiple surfaces to ensure consistent messaging and avoid signal cannibalizationBackground at companies with mature personalization and experimentation cultures (streaming, subscription, e-commerce, or similar)SQL proficiency: can write queries to pull experiment data, validate model outputs, and debug attribution issuesUnderstanding of ML model constraints: online vs. offline models, training data bias, model architecture trade-offs, feature engineeringExperience leading cross-functional initiatives in matrixed organizations that required influencing without direct authorityTrack record of defining and shipping challenger models or model improvements that drove measurable business impactRequired Education:Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, Business, Economics, Statistics, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experienceThe hiring range for this position in San Francisco, CA is $206,400 - $276,700 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.