Sr Manager Product Management

The Walt Disney Company • Glendale, CA

7d • $188,400 - $252,600 • Onsite

About The Position

The Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology organization is seeking a visionary Senior Manager of Product Management to lead the Content Intelligence team. This team is responsible for an AI-assisted product portfolio focused on analyzing, enriching, and localizing Disney’s content catalog. The role involves setting long-term vision, operational strategy, and product roadmaps for advanced technologies. The Senior Manager will lead through influence and direct management, fostering a strong product-led culture and navigating ambiguous spaces to incubate new product lines while ensuring existing automated workflows deliver business value. This position requires partnership with executive stakeholders across Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and regional business teams to align priorities, manage resources, and deliver on high-impact initiatives.

Requirements

• 10+ years of product management experience, with 4+ years of formal people management experience; preferably within digital platforms, media services, and/or media supply chains.
• Proven track record of managing and developing other Product Managers, including setting professional development plans, driving recruiting/headcount planning, and establishing product management standards across a team.
• Experience executing joint planning cycles, managing complex upstream/downstream dependencies, and co-authoring shared roadmaps with peer teams in a highly matrixed, bi-coastal, or international organization.
• Experience managing platform products that integrate with first- and third-party cloud-based APIs and services.
• Strong understanding of the current AI/ML landscape and evolving model capabilities, with proven experience applying these technologies, preferably to digital platforms, media services, or media supply chain workflows.
• Proven ability to balance “dual horizon” high-level strategic roadmap formulation with daily tactical execution and decision-making.
• Skilled at translating long-term initiatives into immediate, actionable delivery plans and operating plans, while allocating resources and driving feature prioritization based on business value, technical risk, and engineering effort.
• Demonstrated capability to develop robust, data-driven business cases focused on cost-to-benefit ratios and vendor cost optimization.
• Proven ability to align, influence, and negotiate priorities with executive stakeholders, with a demonstrated skill to appropriately tailor and present complex information and product vision to a range of audiences.
• Experience guiding teams to conduct user research, workflow analyses, and process observation sessions to identify operational challenges and translate customer needs into comprehensive product requirement documents and strategic product decisions.
• Excellent understanding of the latest product management frameworks and theories, with practical experience establishing Agile, Scrum, or Lean operating models to drive iterative delivery across multiple squads.
• Strong problem-solving skills and informed decision-making abilities in a digital organization.
• Experienced in guiding teams to evaluate and implement emerging technology and AI/machine learning solutions based on fit, viability and trade-offs.
• Highly self-motivated, able to work autonomously under tight timelines, and adapt quickly and pivot effectively as business strategies, operational needs, and product priorities evolve.
• Bachelor’s degree and equivalent experience.

Nice To Haves

• Experience working in the Media and Entertainment industry, with direct exposure to the media supply chain.
• Deep understanding of Generative AI and machine learning models from a product development and integration perspective.
• Strong passion for and interest in Disney brands, storytelling, and the evolution of content experiences.
• Master of Business Administration (MBA) or an advanced technical degree preferred.

Responsibilities

• Directly manage, mentor, and develop a team of professional and experienced Product Managers.
• Ensure the product team maintains high technical and functional competence through strategic headcount planning, recruitment, career coaching, and performance management.
• Foster a collaborative, diverse, and psychologically safe environment that inspires passion, innovation, and a strong product-led culture across the organization.
• Set the long-term vision and roadmap for a portfolio of media-based Content Intelligence AI products providing capabilities to peer teams, and ensure these dovetail seamlessly through proactive, joint planning cycles and clear communication.
• Navigate highly complex, unstructured, or undefined problem spaces, establishing clear execution paths and deliver concrete, high-impact business outcomes.
• Champion user-centric innovation and establish team-wide standards and product management best practices to ensure products continuously deliver strategic business value.
• Shape the operating plans, structures, and execution frameworks to ensure the collection of products achieves significant, measurable business outcomes.
• Proactively identify, map, and de-risk cross-team dependencies, establishing shared milestones with peer teams to ensure synchronized product delivery.
• Manage organizational constraints; obtain, negotiate, and allocate product and engineering resources to meet strategic priorities.
• Guide the team in utilizing modern product discovery and analytical frameworks to evaluate complex operational challenges, balancing short-term execution with long-term portfolio scalability.
• Serve as an expert communicator and trusted advisor to executive leadership.
• Translate highly complex technical paradigms and AI concepts into simple, compelling narratives to secure executive buy-in, manage expectations, and resolve high-stakes conflicts independently.
• Represent the Content Intelligence product strategy to external industry partners and internal executive stakeholders alike, tailoring communication effectively from engineers up to C-suite leadership.
• Lead alignment across organizational boundaries and peer platform teams to successfully deliver complex, multi-team capital initiatives.
• Drive the business case development, cost/benefit analysis, and ROI modelling necessary to support and secure funding for major capital programs.
• Partner with technical leaders to maintain a comprehensive understanding of the technical landscape, ensuring that your team's product roadmap respects underlying architecture and technical constraints.

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
• Education Level: Associate degree