Manager, Product Solutions

Department Description

At Disney, we’re storytellers. We make the impossible, possible. The Walt Disney Company 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 Enterprise Technology mission is to deliver technology solutions that align to business strategies while enabling enterprise efficiency and promoting cross-company collaborative innovation. Our group drives competitive advantage by enhancing our consumer experiences, enabling business growth, and advancing operational excellence.

Team Description:

You will be part of the Cloud & Data Transformation Engineering organization, that provides next-level cloud, data, and developer enablement services to unleash digital magic for Disney. We use modern technologies, design patterns, culture, and organizational alignment to enable teams to seamlessly ship content, products, and magical experiences better, faster, safer, and happier.

As a Manager of Product Solutions, you are responsible for partnering across engineering and product peers, as well as leadership, and manage and guide a team of individual contributors to cohesively and consistently define product vision (lead with the why and think big!), establish a consistent customer rhythm of business, use data to find opportunities, and build a deep roadmap and backlog that prioritizes the highest value for users. This role requires a servant leader mindset and someone who is both technically capable and highly adept at building strong partnerships that deliver critical organizational outcomes. This role requires deep interaction and cross team dependency management for a portfolio of foundational services and capabilities that enable an integrated experience across several products.

This role is specifically focused on the end-to-end management of four product lines, bought from industry and integrated across Disney – Observability/Event Management, Data Solutions, Quality Tooling, Atlassian Enterprise Suite. The main focus is a consistent and automated approach to all phases of product lifecycle – Vendor billing, Disney financial planning, metadata management, data democracy, customer engagement, customer training/skilling, cross enterprise roadmap alignment, planning/communicating vendor releases & upgrades, and product support.

The ideal candidate is technically adept in software and data development lifecycles, Agile and MVP approaches, as well exemplary leadership and communication abilities (both verbal and written). This role requires you to engage customers of both technical and non-technical skillsets (e.g. Information Workers, Developers, and IT Admins).

Responsibilities of Role:

• Directly manage, develop, attract, and retain a team of Product Solutions, driving a consistent practice across CDTE’s vendor product suite as well as driving optimization of usage

• Partner with product and engineering leaders across the organization to assess baseline product maturity and develop a plan to streamline and drive best practice across the organization

• Lead your team to collectively deliver a streamlined, organization-wide adoption of product methodologies and best practices

• Set priorities for the team and provides supervision, guidance & feedback as needed to ensure the right outcomes are delivered

• Leverage techniques that increase collaboration, predictability, and transparency for the team and organization, while promoting a culture of experimentation and innovation

• Act as a product subject matter expert (SME) for the team and organization, imparting knowledge on product principles, and providing the team with tools for tailoring and implementing best practice.

• Lead the team to identify opportunities to continually improve and implement organizational change

• Oversee market and industry analysis of trends and conditions

• Manage the development of the team, including performance appraisals, reviews, and training

• Build a diverse product solutions team through a combination of training, career development, recruiting, and process improvement. 

• Lead by example to ensure the right strategic direction, planning, and prioritization is aligned to organizational priorities and the right business outcomes

• Collaborate with engineers, customers, and stakeholders to prioritize work and set goals for the team. 

• Enact positive change within the team and foster/champion the team’s outcomes

• Regularly report on status and team health, while identifying your team gaps and needs for your leadership. 

• Use a lifelong learning mentality, knowing the latest best practices and technologies

• Exercise good judgment when faced with risk, blockers, or tradeoffs

• Communicate expectations to partners, leaders, and customers, and optimally resets expectations as priorities or deliverables shift

• Engage with customer and organizational leadership to deeply understand unarticulated needs, successes, and new opportunities; then conveys that information to the team in a manner that is traceable and useful.

• Ensure business rhythm is established that corrals both customer sentiment feedback, as well as customer data that enables prioritization requests and enhancements for the product line

• Deep empathy for customer requirements - both the good and the bad

Must Haves:

• A minimum of 8 years’ experience in a technical engineering role such as software, data or systems engineering

• A minimum of 8 years’ experience in technical product or program management

• 8 years’ experience managing individual contributors

• Proven experience setting strategic vision, large scale application/data deployments, managing software or data development lifecycles, and resolving issues that impact design, product success, or address future technologies

• Experienced in SCRUM/Lean Agile frameworks with an MVP/iterative approach

• Ability to influence, take calculated risks, make sound business decisions, and resolve concerns as needed

• Excellent interpersonal, business development, and communication skills (both written & verbal for both technical and non-technical audiences)

• Positive can-do partnership demeanor while working with cross-functional teams and business units

• Must be detail oriented, self-organized, and capable of simultaneously prioritizing multiple efforts

• Proven ability to develop and deliver presentations geared for Senior and Executive Management

• Ability to resolve conflict

• Experience mentoring or growing other individuals; a deep passion for being a servant leader to others

• Ability to thrive in a dynamic, collaborative, and fast paced environment

• Models desired company cultural attributes and inclusive behaviors

Nice To Haves:

• Experience using Azure DevOps for work item management

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information systems, software, electrical or electronics engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience