Sr Manager, Product Design

As Senior Manager Product Design focusing on Employee Digital Experience Strategy, you will guide the design of intuitive and elegant human-centric digital experiences for the 225K+ employees of The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) around the world. You will partner with external vendors and work closely with the internal workforce technology team through the product development process, working closely with our Product Management, Engineering, Talent Acquisition, People Insights and HR teams to continuously improve and innovate our employee-facing experience across mobile and web. 

You will report to the Director, Workforce Technology and work closely with Sr. Manager, Product Management – Employee Digital Experience Strategy to help develop the Digital Employee Strategy for The Walt Disney Company and you’ll be a part of a dynamic team that spans Orlando, Florida and Burbank/Glendale, California.

What You’ll Do

• Work closely with vendors and designers, researchers, information architects and content strategists to deliver world-class experiences for TWDC employees

• Inspire exceptional design thinking, guiding and mentor designers to deliver high-impact solutions that solve business and employee problems

• Run design thinking and story mapping workshops with key business stakeholders

• Care deeply about building exceptional, innovative experiences and look to data and user research to inform design decisions

• Collaborate with cross-functional partners in Product and Engineering to steer a unified roadmap from design perspective.

• Represent the team, and its design strategies, to stakeholders across the organization, including experience engaging with executive leadership.

• Drive new ideas into user research, user testing, stakeholder reviews, prototypes, and POCs all the way into our applications.

• Continuously strive to optimize our process from design discovery to delivery into Engineering.

• Create an atmosphere of trust, empathy, and a growth mindset to foster psychological safety, connection and collaboration.

• Lead and manage the vendor relationship from a design perspective

• Recruit and develop a highly functional team to achieve the program goals.

What You Bring

• Minimum 10 years of design experience building consumer-facing digital products (web/mobile)

• Minimum 2 years managing and developing diverse product design teams which includes experience leading and managing a team of designers, content strategists, and information architects through multiple full product development cycles preferred

• Expert in user-centered design thinking methodologies, as well as the craft of designing intuitive and elegant digital experiences, from outstanding visual design sensibilities to UX and UI best practices, inspiring teams to consistently up-level their work

• Experience working closely with or in management/design consulting firms on digital strategy work from a design perspective

• Prior experience designing award-winning digital experiences for employees preferred 

• Strong portfolio demonstrating both personal and team-based high-impact work, especially mobile platform

• Strong communication and collaboration with cross-functional partners across Product and Engineering as well as within the broader Design organization

• A fearless, action-oriented mindset, with the humility, drive and tenacity to continually advocate for building intuitive experiences our users value, trust and love

• Proven experience impacting and influencing inside and outside your immediate team

• Clear and polished presentation style, integrating storytelling into your communication to build empathy and get buy-in

• Executive presence, inspiring confidence from your team and peers

• A deep, analytical mindset, applying a data-informed approach from near-term, Horizon 1 initiatives up to long-term, Horizon 3 strategies

• Ability to work quickly, adapting to new information when needed, and keen ability to inspire a team to design for quality and scale, while influencing processes that allow the team to invest their time in work that drives the most value for the business

• Experience designing exceptional mobile experiences in a fast-paced environment. 

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience

#DISNEYTECH

The hiring range for this position in California is $164,492- $220,600 per year. The base pay actually offered will take into account internal equity and also may vary depending on the candidate’s geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors. 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.