Lead Technical Program Mgr
About The Position
This is a staff position within Disney Entertainment & ESPN Product & Technology’s Business Operations - Global Program Management organization. The Lead Technical Program Manager focuses on planning and executing complex programs that span areas of Commerce or cross the department and other Product & Technology groups. The role may also help triage programs and form recommendations for senior leadership. The Commerce Global Program Management team supports membership growth for Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ through plans, upsells, prices, promotions, payments, and cancel/saves. The position requires a proactive, detail-oriented program manager who can work autonomously across multiple assignments, understand technical details, communicate schedules, risks, status, and processes to technical and business audiences, and coordinate schedules and deliverables with program managers and technical leads. The role leads strategically prioritized programs, manages dependencies, risks, capacity, budgets, metrics, processes, and stakeholder communications, and serves as a trusted advisor to executives. It also involves influencing cross-functional and external partners, coordinating vendors when applicable, using AI-driven tools to improve delivery practices, and mentoring other technical program managers. The position is based in Glendale, California.
Requirements
- 7+ years of experience managing large-scale, strategic software development programs in a well-established global technology organization.
- Proven ability to facilitate effective communication across disparate teams.
- Expertise in Agile or Waterfall program management methods, potentially including Scrum, Kanban, and/or Scaled Agile.
- Strong planning, delivery, and problem-solving skills.
- Excellent written and verbal communication, presentation, and meeting facilitation skills, especially with senior leadership.
- Experience working in a media technology environment.
- Commerce domain knowledge, or demonstrated aptitude for learning a technology-based engineering domain.
- BA/BS degree or equivalent experience.
Nice To Haves
- Formal project management certifications.
Responsibilities
- Lead execution and delivery of highly complex, strategically prioritized programs with cross-functional and organizational impact.
- Develop plans and timelines that account for dependencies.
- Ensure transparency of progress, issues, and risks; drive risk mitigation, contingency planning, and issue resolution.
- Communicate status and program summaries through presentations, dashboards, email, and direct communication with stakeholders and executive leadership.
- Ensure involved parties understand and accept their roles and responsibilities and are accountable for deliverables.
- Perform capacity planning for teams.
- Coordinate activities across multiple technology teams with program management colleagues.
- Understand program technical components, including architecture, tools, deployment practices, cross-system interactions, and dependencies.
- Track and report key program metrics.
- Partner with Product to advance the intake pipeline and sometimes triage programs and recommend actions to senior leadership.
- Facilitate focused discussions and activities that drive results.
- Navigate the organization to drive progress, including when responsibilities or scope are unclear.
- Demonstrate leadership through collaboration, work ethic, and creative thinking, and strive to inspire others and deliver strong outcomes.
- Define, optimize, and manage team-of-teams ceremonies and processes.
- Advise executives on program feasibility, risks, prioritization, and delivery trade-offs.
- Influence and align cross-functional and external partners without direct authority, resolve conflicts, and drive outcomes with minimal escalation.
- Use AI-driven tools to design and improve scalable delivery processes, governance models, and reporting frameworks.
- Proactively drive, track, and report budgets.
- Coordinate with external vendors when applicable.
- Mentor other technical program managers and improve program management practices across the organization.
Benefits
- A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package.
- Medical, financial, and/or other benefits are available, dependent on the level and position offered.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
