Manager, Product Engineering (Legal Technology)

The Walt Disney Company • Burbank, CA

7d • Onsite

About The Position

At Disney, we’re storytellers. We make the impossible, possible. The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) 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.

The Manager, Product & Engineering (Legal Technology) leads the cross-functional team responsible for the Legal Practice Portfolio — the full set of applications, products, and projects supporting Disney's legal practice areas, including Anti-Piracy, Copyright, Trademark, Patents, the Office of the Corporate Secretary, Securities Regulation, eDiscovery, Immigration, Integrity & Compliance, and Privacy. This role reports to the legal tech Senior Manager, Corporate Products & AI, and partners closely with that team on shared platforms, AI capability rollout, and architecture. It is a working leadership role: the Manager owns delivery and operations across a portfolio largely staffed through managed-service and contingent partners (including IQN-funded product, engineering, and architecture resources), with a small core of Disney FTE product, product-owner, and engineering staff. We're looking for a hands-on product and delivery leader whose defining strength is vendor and managed-service relationship management — someone who can run a high-performing outsourced delivery model day to day, hold partners accountable to outcomes, and free the Senior Manager to focus on strategy, AI direction, and enterprise alignment. Deep legal-domain expertise working with enterprise legal departments is essential. Curiosity about applying AI to legal practice work is highly valued.

Requirements

• Minimum of 8 years of experience in product management, technical program management, software delivery, or technology operations within a large enterprise.
• Minimum of 3 years of direct people-management experience, including managing a blended team of FTE and contingent / vendor-delivered resources.
• Demonstrated track record running an outsourced or managed-service delivery model as the client-side owner — not just consuming staff augmentation.
• Hands-on experience authoring and managing SOWs, SLAs, OKRs/KPIs, and governance cadences with delivery partners; comfort holding partners accountable to measurable outcomes.
• Experience in multi-vendor environments , including transitions between partners, rate-card negotiations, and partner performance reviews.
• Working knowledge of contingent-workforce platforms and processes (e.g., IQN, Beeline, Fieldglass, or equivalent).
• Proven ability to define and manage product roadmaps, backlogs, and release plans across multiple concurrent product lines.
• Hands-on experience with Scrum, Kanban, or SAFe in environments where delivery teams are partially or primarily vendor-staffed.
• Comfortable working with the team in modern software engineering practices: cloud / SaaS platforms, CI/CD, DevOps, integration patterns, and basic security and privacy principles.
• Able to credibly review and accept vendor-delivered technical work.
• Data-driven operating style: comfortable defining OKRs/KPIs and using them to manage both team and partner performance.
• General familiarity with regulated or compliance-sensitive enterprise environments (legal, finance, HR, healthcare, or similar).
• Excellent written and verbal communication; ability to translate between business stakeholders, FTE delivery staff, and external partners.
• Comfort operating in a matrixed organization and partnering across product, engineering, architecture, security, and sourcing functions.
• Experience managing operating and project budgets, including vendor and contingent-labor spend, with monthly forecasting accountability.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, a related technical field, business, or comparable field of study — and/or equivalent work experience.

Nice To Haves

• Experience supporting AI/ML product delivery — generative AI pilots, human-in-the-loop workflows, evaluation frameworks, or AI vendor selection.
• Strong curiosity about applying AI to knowledge-worker and legal-practice workflows.
• Prior exposure to legal technology platforms (eDiscovery, contract lifecycle management, IP / trademark / patent management, legal hold, document and records management, NetDocuments).
• Familiarity with data-privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA) and compliance reporting workflows.
• Knowledge of ITIL / ITSM practices for managing service-management work delivered through partners.
• Familiarity with enterprise architecture frameworks (TOGAF or equivalent).
• Advanced degree (MBA or technical Master's) or relevant certifications in agile, product, or vendor management.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end product, engineering, and operational health of the Legal Practice Portfolio, ensuring each practice area receives responsive, outcome-oriented technology support.
• Lead a blended team of Disney FTEs (product manager, product owner, engineer) and IQN-funded contingent staff (product manager, product owner, architect, business analyst) toward shared delivery commitments.
• Translate practice-area priorities into roadmaps, backlogs, and release plans; balance net-new build, sustaining work, and modernization across ten-plus legal practice domains.
• Serve as the day-to-day escalation point for portfolio delivery, partner performance, and production issues; escalate strategic or cross-portfolio matters to the Senior Manager.
• Own the operating relationship with the portfolio's primary delivery partners and contingent-workforce providers (including IQN-funded resources), running it as a true managed-service engagement rather than staff augmentation.
• Define and steward statements of work, SLAs, OKRs/KPIs, and governance cadences (weekly operational, monthly delivery, quarterly business reviews); hold partners accountable to outcomes, not activity.
• Partner with Sourcing, Finance, and the Senior Manager on contract renewals, rate cards, scope changes, and partner performance reviews; recommend rebalancing or replacement when needed.
• Establish quality gates and acceptance criteria for vendor-delivered work, ensuring code, design, and documentation meet Disney engineering and security standards before acceptance.
• Build a healthy multi-vendor ecosystem: avoid lock-in, cross-train across partners where appropriate, and continuously benchmark cost-to-value.
• Build trust-based relationships with practice-area attorneys, paralegals, and operations leads across the legal practice domains; serve as their primary technology point of contact.
• Translate legal-practice needs into product and engineering work without needing to be a legal-domain expert — rely on, develop, and amplify the team's existing domain depth.
• Represent the portfolio in enterprise forums (architecture review, security, privacy, change advisory) on behalf of the Senior Manager when appropriate.
• Drive agile practice across the team and its delivery partners: backlog health, sprint discipline, definition of done, release management, and measurable cycle-time and quality improvements.
• Track portfolio performance using a consistent set of KPIs (delivery predictability, partner performance, system reliability, stakeholder satisfaction, run-rate cost); report monthly to the Senior Manager.
• Champion DevOps, CI/CD, and automation across vendor-delivered work, not just FTE-delivered work.
• Partner with the Senior Manager and the new AI/ML Engineer and Architect on identifying, piloting, and scaling AI use cases within the legal practice portfolio (document review, drafting assistance, intake triage, research acceleration, etc.).
• Bring an experimental, measured mindset: help the team move from POC to production responsibly, with appropriate human-in-the-loop and risk controls.
• Manage, mentor, and develop the FTE direct reports on the portfolio team; set clear expectations and growth paths.
• Provide directional leadership to IQN-funded contingent staff working on the portfolio, ensuring they are well-integrated, well-utilized, and held to the same delivery standards.
• Foster a culture where the team's deep legal-domain knowledge is recognized, shared, and continuously refreshed.
• Own the operating budget for the Legal Practice Portfolio, including vendor spend, contingent labor, and software licensing; provide accurate monthly forecasts and variance explanations to the Senior Manager.

Benefits

• 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.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager