Staff Product Manager, Tech Solutions

The Walt Disney Company 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. Bring your individual talents here and discover for yourself why a career with Disney is the opportunity you’ve been looking for. 

The Walt Disney Studios Technology Team is seeking a Staff Product Manager, Technology Solutions for the Manufacturing team to assist with the development and roll out of our DCP and IMF mastering platforms. The ideal candidate combines a strong background in enterprise SaaS product management with a deep understanding of studio post-production, localization, and digital cinema distribution workflows. You will translate complex creative and technical requirements into scalable software capabilities that power the global distribution of film and television content. 

The Staff Product Manager will report to the Senior Manager, Technology Solutions at The Walt Disney Studios and is based in Burbank. 

Role Overview 

The Staff Product Manager is accountable for defining product vision, aligning stakeholders, and delivering high-impact solutions across our apps and platforms. This requires a proven track record delivering solutions in the media and entertainment space. 

The role is responsible for the standards, planning discipline, and delivery quality of the products across the Manufacturing portfolio. The role carries its own delivery accountability along with functional leadership expectations for the team, but with no direct reports.  

This role partners closely with Studio Operations, engineering, design, and support teams to ensure products deliver measurable value, scale effectively, and support long-term business strategy. 

Responsibilities 

The Staff Product Manager is responsible for the planning and execution throughout the product life cycle of a portfolio of products, including recommending strategy, gathering and prioritizing product and customer requirements, aligning these with the Senior Manager’s vision, and working closely with engineering and UI/UX to ensure metrics and goals are met. The Staff Product Manager’s job also includes ensuring that the product supports the organization’s overall strategy and goals. 

Product Strategy & Ownership:

• Use deep expertise in digital cinema and in home mastering to inform product strategy and roadmaps. 
• Own end-to-end product strategy, roadmap, and outcomes for assigned platforms in alignment with the Senior Manager’s vision. 
• Align business partners and cross-functional teams on product vision, priorities, and success measures. 
• Translate business objectives into clear, actionable product initiatives tied to value and impact. 
• Apply modern product discovery techniques to deeply understand user needs and validate solutions. 
• Manage external vendor and partner engagements where applicable. 
• Develop trusted relationships across domains to drive alignment and delivery. 
• Collaborate closely with engineering, media operations, and localization teams to deliver reliable, automated, and standards-compliant mastering tools. 
• Define and monitor the KPIs that will inform product management and executive leadership. 
• Champion automation and efficiency, driving initiatives that reduce manual efforts and accelerate delivery. 
• Stay informed about emerging technologies and trends to provide well-reasoned product recommendations. 
• Create and deliver compelling, high-quality presentations for diverse audiences, demonstrating strong communication skills to influence stakeholders and drive key initiatives. 

Product Intake & Prioritization:

• Own intake of product requests by evaluating fit against strategy and business value. 
• Define detailed requirements, feature definitions, and implementation plans with clear scope, assumptions, and success criteria. 
• Continuously refine priorities based on outcomes, dependencies, and organizational goals. 

Delivery & Application Development:

• Analyze and define current and future-state business processes to inform product design. 
• Lead user and stakeholder discovery to guide functional and platform decisions. 
• Through influence, not authority, partner with other teams and product managers to drive development and implementation of our Manufacturing platforms. 
• Partner with engineering and design teams to ensure solutions align with product vision and long-term platform strategy. 
• Participate in software selection activities when applicable. 
• Contribute to the estimation and planning of complex and scalable projects, including budget considerations 
• Drive delivery of high-quality solutions through close collaboration with development teams. 

Product Quality & Release Management:

• Own UAT strategy, acceptance criteria, and release readiness for major product launches. 
• Partner with engineering and operations teams to triage defects and ensure quality standards are met prior to release. 
• Provide product-level oversight for production issues, identifying root causes and prioritizing durable fixes. 
• Support change management activities to ensure successful adoption.

Enablement & Adoption:

• Ensure solutions are usable, well-adopted, and aligned with business workflows. 
• Use business challenges to recommend best practices to improve products, processes, and services, 
• Recommend delivery specification updates and automations to handle exceptions. 

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree, or equivalent years of professional experience. 
• 7+ years of experience as a Product Manager or Senior Product Manager for media supply chain, mastering, or distribution platforms. 
• Established depth in a digital cinema technology including familiarity with DCP, IMF, CPL/PKL structures, essence encryption, and KDM workflows. 
• Working knowledge of SaaS architectures, cloud media storage (AWS S3), and high-throughput file transfer technologies (Aspera, S3 Transfers). 
• Leading others to solve complex problems; uses sophisticated analytical thought to exercise judgement and identify innovative solutions. 
• Strong competency in evaluating trade‑offs across user value, technical constraints, and business impact 
• Experience driving complex features, integrations, or cross‑system solutions. 
• Excellent cross-functional communication skills, with the ability to bridge engineering and post-production teams. 
• Ability to manage multiple products simultaneously and prioritize effectively in a dynamic environment. 
• High sense of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement mindset. 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Master's degree in a related technical field.
• Evidence of data-driven decision making. 
• Prior experience in a studio, post-production, or distribution technology environment. 
• Knowledge of media asset management systems, transcoding workflows, and metadata validation tools. 
• Experience with localization, versioning, and territory-specific mastering at scale. 
• Exceptional written and verbal communication, with proven ability to influence at the executive level. 
• Ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical people. 

PAY TRANSPARENCY

The hiring range for this position in Glendale, CA is $158,100.00 to $211,900.00 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

This position is with Walt Disney Pictures, which is part of a business we call The Walt Disney Studios.

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Walt Disney Pictures is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or protected veteran status. Disney champions a business environment where ideas and decisions from all people help us grow, innovate, create the best stories and be relevant in a constantly evolving world.

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