Lead Release Management Analyst

Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology

On any given day at Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology, 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 maximize 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.

A few reasons why we think you’d love working for Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology

• 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 execute groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms and enhance how audiences experience sports, entertainment & news.

The Product & Data Engineering team is responsible for end-to-end development for Disney’s world-class consumer-facing products, including streaming platforms Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, and digital products & experiences across ESPN, Marvel, Disney Studios, NatGeo, and ABC News. The team drives innovation at scale for millions of consumers around the world across Apple, Android, Smart TVs, game consoles, and the web, with our platforms powering core experiences like personalization, search, messaging and data.

Reporting to the manager of Release Management within Product & Data Engineering, the Lead Release Analyst will introduce procedural excellence and drive the release management strategy for DE&E Tech globally. This person will partner with leaders to develop annual release forecasting plans and will track execution progress against those plans. They will also partner with key financial leaders within our segment to enable seamless deployment of projects and execution of strategies. This person will develop interdepartmental onboarding programs and lead discipline-wide upskilling sessions to ensure release and deployment seamlessness across all technology studios and initiatives.

What You Will Do:

• Responsible for supporting release strategy, developing release plans, schedules, processes, and documentation in collaboration with cross-functional teams. Dive deep into technical systems to triage SW Release risks and issues found, take necessary actions to mitigate them and stay connected to the details to help make the right release tradeoffs
• Develop and enhance program and release criteria, driving release quality metrics and improvements.
• Create, maintain, and communicate program release progress and updates to all stakeholders.
• Serve as an integrator on a wide variety of initiatives to advance segment operations and maximize the overall effectiveness of Product Design, Program Management, and Software Engineering.
• Liaison with Product & Technical Directors for ongoing annual strategic forecasting of Release Management, standardizing workflows and onboarding practices, and ensure web & mobile deliverables meet strategic objectives across all major app platforms.
• Provide data-driven, procedural solutions to drive intelligence on the health of our services, deployments, and releases.
• Facilitate agile methodologies and introduce Engineering-driven problem-solving sessions (e.g. Monthly Innovation Friday) to encourage creativity & synthesis.
• Establish clear internal communication hierarchies, systems/templates for inter-departmental procedural clarity.
• Tactical and strategic/ad-hoc analysis across several different business units.
• Develop internal training sessions, manage, and maintain onboarding practices to enrich the skill sets of all new hires.
• Mentor team members of all disciplines to ensure technical and delivery quality.

What You Will Bring:

Basic Qualifications

• Minimum of 7+ years of related experience
• Bachelor’s degree in Business Management or IT, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience
• Experience in release management and knowledge of app/web platforms (i.e., iOS, Android, App Store, Play Store)
• Experience in agile software development methodologies
• Superb organization, detail-orientation, and project management skills, with the ability to effectively prioritize and balance short and long-term work streams
• Highly effective oral and written communication skills, ability to develop beneficial relationships and networks in order to achieve results
• Strong presentation and design skills; experience with Keynote, PowerPoint and internal collaboration sites (e.g. Confluence, Box, Office365, Slack, MS Teams etc.)
• Ability to flex and pivot quickly based on priority shifts and/or changes in workstreams
• Proven experience in influencing business and technology leadership to drive positive lasting outcomes
• Solid understanding of program and project management principles
• Strong situational analysis and decision-making abilities

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with corporate accounting software such as SAP, and presentation software such as Keynote is a plus.
• F&A experience for capital planning and project planning
• Experience with Airtable and Jira
• Understanding of Disney existing procedures and corporate culture, a plus

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