Sr. Product Manager I - Video Player

On any given day at Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology, we’re reimagining ways to create magical viewing experiences for the world’s most beloved stories while also transforming Disney’s media business for the future. Whether that’s evolving our streaming and digital products in new and immersive ways, powering worldwide advertising and distribution to maximize flexibility and efficiency, or delivering Disney’s unmatched entertainment and sports content, every day is a moment to make a difference to partners and to hundreds of millions of people around the world.

A few reasons why we think you’d love working for Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology

• Building the future of Disney’s media business: DE&E Technologists are designing and building the infrastructure that will power Disney’s media, advertising, and distribution businesses for years to come.
• Reach & Scale: The products and platforms this group builds and operates delight millions of consumers every minute of every day – from Disney+ and Hulu, to ABC News and Entertainment, to ESPN and ESPN+, and much more.
• Innovation: We develop and execute groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms and enhance how audiences experience sports, entertainment & news.

The Product Management team guides the strategy and vision for Disney’s incredible global digital products portfolio - from Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ and the ESPN App to Marvel Unlimited, National Geographic, ABC and ABC News, and film websites and games. This team impacts the way millions of people around the world experience and engage with Disney’s iconic stories and unmatched content in more personalized and immersive ways, leveraging cutting-edge technologies ranging from Machine Learning to Extended Reality.

Job Summary

Want to join a fast-paced, exciting team that serves over 3 Billion video plays a month across 20+ device families? We seek an enthusiastic and experienced senior product manager to lead our efforts in evolving the world-class video player used by Disney+, Hulu, ESPN and other Disney brand partners. 

The video player is the heart of the streaming experience for our users, and the Video Player and Playback Experiences product team manages playback capabilities and in-player experience for Disney+, Star+, Hulu today. We are in the midst of a transformation into a more holistic model by which the same player capabilities, experience and technology can be brought over to ESPN & General Entertainment brands.  Keeping the experience compelling, satisfying, and familiar, regardless of what device is in use, is the highest priority. You will work closely with counterparts in engineering and product management, as well as with executive teams, to ensure the product roadmap fulfills business, technical, and consumer priorities for target platforms and assist with the numerous platform unification efforts.

The ideal candidate is highly analytical, resourceful, team oriented, and will have an ability to work independently under time constraints to meet deadlines. You will have a proven track record in taking on end-to-end ownership and successfully delivering results in a fast-paced and dynamic business environment.

Responsibilities

• Work with engineering stakeholders and product peers to define scope, create a rollout strategy, determine trade-offs and build consensus on implementation approaches for unifying the playback stack across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN. 
• Capture the specific nuances in requirements for each brand and creating a common set of capabilities for VOD, Live, Linear and Ads Playback.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to translate requirements into actionable stories, work with product design to create consistent cross-brand playback experiences and work with quality assurance to ensure test coverage for playback capabilities across all device platforms.
• Partner with quality assurance teams to translate acceptance criteria and ensure maximum test coverage.
• Work with device and distribution partner teams to coordinate uses of the player releases across new devices.
• Drive end to end responsibility for the product feature / capability that is being built, from concept to the finish line.

Basic Qualifications

• 5+ years of product management or other relevant work experience required.
• Demonstrated ability to assimilate information from a wide variety of sources to build new domain knowledge.
• An obsession to drive data-oriented decisions to make customers happy, and deeply care about good customer experience.
• A strong attention to detail, yet with the ability to take a step back and understand the bigger picture.
• Experience working with design and user research teams to deliver a rich user experience to viewers.
• Ability to be scrappy and resourceful, with no fear of getting your hands dirty and an impulse to be the first to tackle any challenge.
• Demonstrated ability to work with engineering teams to discuss technical concepts, make tradeoffs to remove roadblocks, and evaluate new ideas.

Preferred Qualifications

• Video player product management experience / high-level technical understanding of video player components, ad insertion, instrumentation, and analytics.
• Understanding of streaming technologies including Adaptive Bitrate Streaming, HLS Playback, DRM are a plus.
• Understanding of playback KPIs such as Video Start Time, Error Rates, and Buffering are highly desirable.

Required Education  

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field required.

The hiring range for this position in New York, NY and Seattle, WA is $142,600 to $191,100 per year, in Santa Monica, CA and Bristol, CT is $136,100 to $182,400 per year, in San Francisco, CA is $149,000 to 199,800 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.