Staff Technical Program Manager (Core Product Experience)

Welcome to Warner Bros. Discovery… the stuff dreams are made of.

Who We Are…

When we say, “the stuff dreams are made of,” we’re not just referring to the world of wizards, dragons and superheroes, or even to the wonders of Planet Earth. Behind WBD’s vast portfolio of iconic content and beloved brands, are the storytellers bringing our characters to life, the creators bringing them to your living rooms and the dreamers creating what’s next…

From brilliant creatives, to technology trailblazers, across the globe, WBD offers career defining opportunities, thoughtfully curated benefits, and the tools to explore and grow into your best selves. Here you are supported, here you are celebrated, here you can thrive.

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), a premier global media and entertainment company, offers audiences the world's most differentiated and complete portfolio of content, brands, and franchises across television, film, streaming, and gaming.

For more information, please visit www.wbd.com.

About the Job

We’re looking for a talented and driven Staff Technical Program Manager to join our Core Product Experience team. In this position, you will be responsible for shepherding the development and deployment of new features within the core product experience. The right candidate is passionate about advancing the video streaming consumer experience and possesses a strong program management background, with a demonstrated ability to not be hindered by ambiguity or competing priorities. As a Staff Technical Program Manager, you will anticipate bottlenecks, recognize the most impactful issues to the customer experience, generate appropriate visibility with the senior-most leadership at WBD, negotiate, prioritize, and track mitigation and resolution of risks. Maturity, high judgment, negotiation skills, ability to influence, technical acumen, analytical talent and leadership are essential to success in this role.

About the Team 

The Core Product Experience team is a dynamic and collaborative group dedicated to helping engineering teams thrive all while improving our overall Product. We work extremely closely with our Product Management partners to deliver features within the core product experience which includes Navigation, Components on Pages, Continue Watching, My List, Search, Detail Pages and Playback. We are passionate about technology, value open communication, and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where every team member can contribute to our collective success.

The Daily

As a Staff Technical Program Manager, your day-to-day activities will involve:

• Overseeing multiple technology programs, ensuring alignment with strategic business objectives.

• Creating and managing detailed program plans for big ticket initiatives and providing leadership in helping teams quickly and effectively adapt to change.

• Collaborating across functions to ensure timely delivery of dependencies.

• Providing technical architecture guidance and support to product & engineering teams throughout project lifecycles.

• Working with Product Managers to establish and create efficient backlogs.

• Maintaining open communication channels with product management, engineering teams, and other stakeholders.

• Providing regular program status to various stakeholders including executive sponsors.

• Supervising and coordinating cross-functional teams, ensuring alignment and collaboration towards common goals.

The Essentials

To succeed in this role, you will need:

• To be a former software engineer or otherwise have a deeply technical background. You should be able to lead and participate in technical conversations with software engineers and understand complex technical requirements. 

• 8+ years experience in successful technology program delivery and management through each of these stages initiation, planning, execution, tracking, and closing. Experience must demonstrate - consistent delivery of the right software on time with both internal and external team dependencies. 

• Ability to successfully manage multiple projects, in varying stages, across multiple products and stakeholder groups, with fungible judgment. 

• Ability to anticipate issues and risks before they have a material impact to delivery. When they do have a material impact, ability to autonomously quantify impact, weigh options, identify the best path forward, align stakeholders, and drive to success. 

• Ability to align your team's deliverables with goals of the broader organization. - Success in identifying, influencing, and leading implementation of impactful process improvements. 

• Success in leading and influencing teams to positive outcomes and continuous improvement, even when the team is not under your direct management. 

• Clear and concise verbal and written communication with a passion for keeping stakeholders informed on what to expect and when, with an ability to vary style and level of detail as appropriate to the audience. 

• You are highly skilled in working in a global environment, both with colleagues across multiple time zones and countries as well as delivering products and services on a truly global scale. You also have an appreciation of cultural differences between regions and countries, always striving to deliver the best possible services for customers within the global product portfolio.

• A solid understanding of software development methods like CI/CD, Agile Scrum, Kanban, Waterfall, etc. and can apply the right tool or technique to the situation.

• Experience with JIRA, Confluence, and Smartsheet or other project management tools.

The Nice to Haves

While not required, the following skills and experiences would be a plus:

• Past experience working with Direct-To-Consumer streaming applications.

• Experience in working with or managing remote or distributed teams.

• Certifications in program management or agile methodologies (e.g., PMP, Scrum Master)

How We Get Things Done…

This last bit is probably the most important! Here at WBD, our guiding principles are the core values by which we operate and are central to how we get things done. You can find them at www.wbd.com/guiding-principles/  along with some insights from the team on what they mean and how they show up in their day to day. We hope they resonate with you and look forward to discussing them during your interview.

Championing Inclusion at WBD

Warner Bros. Discovery embraces the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects the diversity of our society and the world around us. Being an equal opportunity employer means that we take seriously our responsibility to consider qualified candidates on the basis of merit, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, mental or physical disability, and genetic information, marital status, citizenship status, military status, protected veteran status or any other category protected by law.

If you’re a qualified candidate and you require adjustments or accommodations to search for a job opening or apply for a position, please contact us at recruitadmin@wbd.com.