Senior Product Manager I - Search

Key Skills

Data science techniques, Design, Effective communication skills, Machine learning techniques, Planning and organization, Presentation skills, Product Management

Job Description

Providing an intuitive and accurate Search service to get subscribers to their content as quickly and efficiently as possible in their language of choice is a cornerstone of the Disney Streaming experience. We aim to understand what our subscribers want within the first few keystrokes, quickly connecting them to their desired content so they can maximize their enjoyment of Disney’s content. Delivering a good search experience is both art and science, relying on content expertise, machine learning, human psychology, and rapid experimentation. The work we do has a huge impact – Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology enables experiences for hundreds of millions of subscribers globally across Disney+, Hulu, ESPN and more.

We are looking for a Senior Product Manager with passion for the intersection of machine learning, search relevance and personalization to help delight our viewers to help them find the right content at the right time. This individual will partner on the strategy, roadmap, and execution for key areas such as, but not limited to: translation/language detection services, metadata improvements for the search index, personalizing the search experience, query intent and spelling correction.

Whether it’s solving for specific subscriber cohorts or experimenting with cutting-edge machine learning, this is a position that will have an incredibly broad impact on the direct customer experience as well as the Disney Streaming business.

This is an ideal role for someone who thrives in ambiguity and a proven track record of contributing to the product strategy and roadmap for a complex machine learning problem space. You should be able to balance pragmatism and product intuition to achieve meaningful results amongst a rapidly growing and changing subscriber base.

Responsibilities

• Assist in defining, driving, and communicating the global Search strategy for the Disney portfolio with the rest of the Search team

• Deliver on a product strategy and roadmap across our Disney+, Hulu, Star+, and ESPN+ products that balances broader Disney strategic goals for our increasingly diverse subscriber base

• Work with fellow Search PMs, design, engineering, data science and research teams to help inform the future of the search experience

• Deliver business impact through our Search products. We are a team that can (and does) nerd out about algorithms but also land huge business impacts such as increasing subscriber engagement and retention

• Pitch and assess new initiatives with the critical lens of an investor. We have limited bandwidth and plenty of opportunities to improve. What do we do first?

• Serve as a thought leader in the Search space, advocating for best practices and sharing learning across the organization.

Basic Qualifications

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in product management or other relevant field.

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience.

• Familiarity with machine learning fundamentals, experience working closely with a machine learning engineering team.

• Launched products that had multiple cross-team dependencies.

• Data-focused mindset and proven ability to use data to explore all aspects of a problem and analyze solutions.

• Excellent presentation skills and clear, logical communication of product strategy, roadmap, and technical concepts to engineering as well as leadership.

• A passion for the media and entertainment industry.

• Openness for learning -- in the machine learning space, we often find ourselves reading the latest research paper or playing with a new proof-of-concept. In this role, you’ll aim to seek this information out not only out of curiosity, but also to source ideas for your next project.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working on consumer-facing products, ideally search, recommendations, machine learning, or data science.

• Experience in social/entertainment space (music, video, social).

• Experience working in a fast-paced consumer product.

• Familiar with A/B experimentation methods and hypothesis-driven development.

• You’re passionate about machine learning and love speaking with developers on how to leverage ML to build a better search experience.

• You understand that growing fast means both building new things but also revisiting past assumptions because you’ve experienced working with relevance and personalization modeling at scale.

• You are creative, collaborative, results-oriented and scrappy. Above all, however, you believe deeply in Disney’s primary mission of storytelling and delivering these stories to the world.

DISNEYTECH

The hiring range for this position in Bristol, CT and Santa Monica, CA is $136,100 - $182,400 per year, in NYC and Seattle is $142,600 - $191,100 per year and in San Francisco is $149,000 – $199,800 based on a 40 hour work week. The amount of hours scheduled per week may vary based on business needs. 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.

About Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology:

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Technology (DE&E Technology) provides the technological backbone and product development for Disney’s two media business units, while helping to keep the company at the vanguard of innovation – enabling the Company to continuously leverage technology to enhance storytelling and creativity, while delivering scalability, flexibility, and efficiency for its businesses.

About The Walt Disney Company:

The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise with the following business segments: Disney Entertainment, ESPN, Disney Parks, and Experiences and Products. From humble beginnings as a cartoon studio in the 1920s to its preeminent name in the entertainment industry today, Disney proudly continues its legacy of creating world-class stories and experiences for every member of the family. Disney’s stories, characters and experiences reach consumers and guests from every corner of the globe. With operations in more than 40 countries, our employees and cast members work together to create entertainment experiences that are both universally and locally cherished.

This position is with Disney Streaming Technology LLC, which is part of a business we call Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology.