Senior Manager, Data Engineering

About the Role & Team

“We Power the Magic!”  That’s our motto at Disney Experiences (DX). Our team creates world-class immersive digital experiences for the Company’s premier vacation brands including Disney’s Parks & Resorts worldwide, Disney Cruise Line, Aulani, A Disney Resort & Spa, and Disney Vacation Club. We are responsible for the end-to-end digital and physical Guest experience for all technology & digital-led initiatives across the Attractions & Entertainment, Food & Beverage, Resorts & Transportation, and Merchandise lines of business, as well as other initiatives, including MyDisneyExperience and Hey, Disney!

As the Senior Manager, Data Engineering, you will lead a team of engineers and product managers responsible for operating and advancing the platforms and products that power data and guest experiences across Disney Experiences. This role requires an exceptional leader who pairs deep technical expertise with strong people and communication skills to support partners across Disney Experiences’ diverse portfolio of theme parks, resorts, cruise ships, and other vacation experiences.

You will own the reliability, performance, security, and evolution of our virtual and serverless infrastructure and CI/CD processes and pipelines, as well as internal customer-facing applications, including the segment’s BI and visualization tools, the Snowflake data warehouse, and the current-state identity resolution platform. You will set technical direction, translate platform and business strategy into actionable plans, and build a high-performing team that consistently delivers secure, resilient, and cost-effective outcomes.

If selected for this Full-Time position, you will report to the Director Data Engineering.

What You Will Do

As a Senior Manager of Data Engineering in Data Products and Platforms, you will be accountable for the operation, reliability, and continuous improvement of the platforms and applications your team supports, and for building and developing a high-performing team.

• Orchestrate the design, development, and oversight of the technology architecture, solutions, and infrastructure that support the segment’s BI and visualization tools, Snowflake data warehouse, and current-state identity resolution platform
• Lead the operation and continuous improvement of the platform’s virtual and serverless AWS infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines, ensuring availability, performance, security, and resiliency across environments
• Establish robust processes and frameworks for data flow, API delivery, and storage across service-based and analytics-based offerings, aligning closely with business and technical requirements
• Set design standards and quality assurance protocols for software and systems development, ensuring data compatibility, operability, and integrity across all connections, transmissions, and storage platforms
• Translate high-level platform and business strategy into clear, actionable directives, and adjust priorities decisively as business needs change
• Proactively identify and address operational, performance, and security issues before they affect customers, and lead escalation and resolution when they do
• Evaluate and adopt emerging technologies, including AI, to advance platform capabilities and accelerate how the team delivers them
• Balance cost, security, efficiency, and resiliency across architecture and operational decisions
• Partner with key business and technology stakeholders to capture demand, establish business value, and represent strategies clearly and professionally in executive and high-pressure settings
• Provide leadership, coaching, and performance management for a multi-disciplinary team of experienced engineers and product managers
• Develop self and others, supporting career aspirations by recognizing different working styles and leveraging individual strengths
• Create an open, collaborative environment where ideas are debated on merit, every voice is heard, and the team is empowered to do its best work

Required Qualifications & Skills

• Minimum 10 years of related work experience, including demonstrated experience leading and developing technical teams
• Mastery of cross-platform coding languages (e.g., SQL, Python) for data solution development, advanced data manipulation, and analysis
• Extensive experience in data engineering, including modern database technologies (e.g. Snowflake) and formats, data architecture principles, and data modeling practices
• Deep, hands-on experience with AWS virtual computing technologies such as EC2 and RDS, and with AWS serverless and managed infrastructure (e.g., KMS, CloudWatch, CodeBuild, ECS, MWAA, VPC, ElastiCache, ECR)
• Familiarity with BI and visualization tools such as SAP Business Objects and Crystal Reports, Tableau, and MicroStrategy, or comparable platforms
• Experience working in large-scale code repositories to design, operate, and improve complex CI/CD processes and pipelines
• Proven ability to think strategically and innovate, translating high-level strategy into actionable directives, adjusting priorities as business needs change, and synthesizing ideas to act decisively with limited context and minimal direction
• Track record of establishing best practices and standards for scalable, reliable, secure, and high-performance solutions that balance cost, security, efficiency, and resiliency, with a strong bias toward user experience and creating business value
• A collaborative, open-minded, and passionate leader who builds on the ideas of others, develops and empowers the team, and gets the best from each individual
• Strong written and oral communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills, including the ability to represent ideas clearly and professionally with top executives and in high-pressure situations.
• Practical experience using agile methodologies (e.g., Scrum, Lean) for iterative delivery

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting identity resolution platforms
• Containers and orchestration (e.g., Docker, ECS, ECR).
• Infrastructure as Code (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation, CDK).
• CI/CD tooling (e.g., CodeBuild, GitLab Runners, Jenkins).
• Security practices including IAM roles, wire encryption, and KMS.
• Experience working with remote repositories like GitHub and GitLab.
• Experience planning and delivering large-scale data or platform initiatives with multi-disciplinary teams.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience is required

Benefits & Perks

Disney offers a rewards package to help you live your best life. This includes health and savings benefits, educational opportunities and special extras that only Disney can provide. Learn more about our benefits and perks at https://jobs.disneycareers.com/benefits.
 

#DisneyTech

The hiring range for this position in Orlando, FL is $179,500 to $240,600 per year, in Anaheim/Glendale, CA is $188,400 to $252,600 per year and in Seattle, WA is $197,400 to $264,700 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.