Manager, Software Engineering

About the Role & Team

Performance Marketing is an internal cross-functional team within The Walt Disney Studios Marketing organization.  The Performance Marketing team leverages developing and maturing ad technologies to achieve remarkable data-driven results within auction-based or otherwise addressable media platforms; they also support other paid media and marketing efforts with insights, recommendations, and innovative marketing technologies.  Performance Marketing includes Marketing Technology and Marketing Science who help drive innovation, as well as units for Performance Marketing Strategy & Operations, Marketing Analytics, and Marketing Compliance who ground the overall team in the business. Together, we strive and collaborate for continuous improvement in advertising effectiveness and efficiency while protecting and enhancing the magical brands of The Walt Disney Studios.  

We are looking for a Manager, Software Engineering to sit in the Marketing Technology Unit, to lead the creation, experimentation, and innovation of new media performance applications and automations. You'll get to understand the challenges of executing a highly data-driven and technically precise paid media strategy for a variety of titles and brand experiences, all while using the latest technologies and tooling in the data/tech space. If you're interested in working in a highly collaborative team environment embedded directly in a key business unit like this, please get in touch - we'd love to hear from you! 

What You Will Do

• Lead team of data-driven software engineers; drive process improvement, recruitment, professional development, mentorship, and effective team culture 
• Balance leadership with technical contributions; be hands-on with the design and implementation of tools that support the existing ad technology teams at The Walt Disney Studios—collectively known as “the performance marketing engine”; allow the teams to scale their work, increase the rate of delivery, and make space for future innovation 
• Drive software engineering and architectural best practices and standards within the team, along with a culture of engineering excellence; uphold standards and rigor around software development, testing, deployment, and documentation 
• Evangelize new tools, best-practices, and data driven decisions across the Performance Marketing team and the broader marketing organization  
• Create tooling and applications that can dynamically manage ad strategy configurations in a variety of social and digital platforms 
• Implement front-end data visualization and workflows to increase engagement with elements of the Performance Marketing Engine 
• Collaborate with data scientists and product managers to rapidly iterate from prototypes to high-quality, production pipelines 
• Implement quality controls, monitoring, and other safeguards to ensure optimizations are accurately and safely applied to in-flight ad campaigns and key business metrics are always presented accurately 
• Adapt applications and workflows in the Performance Marketing Engine to changes arising from industry-wide events (such as the iOS14 update or cookie deprecation) as well as to more customary changes like standard updates to partner APIs. 
• Finding opportunities to better integrate with other technology solutions at Disney or with trusted external partners or vendors 

Required Qualifications & Skills

• Bachelor’s and/or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience 
• 8+ years of related work experience 
• Proven experience developing full-stack applications and services, as well as popular frameworks (e.g., FastAPI, Spring Boot).  
• Experience with data-rich environments and a fluency with Python, Spark, and SQL 
• Understanding of cloud compute (AWS, BigQuery) and modern dev ops practices; experience crafting and owning CI/CD pipelines for applications 
• Ability to dive deep into any technical component as well as understand and drive the overall systems architecture. 
• Knowledge of ad platforms including DMPs, Google Ads, Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, Innovid, LiveRamp and DSPs (Google DV360, Trade Desk, Verizon Media Group) 
• Proven ability to manage multiple projects effectively that meet deadlines within a fast-paced environment 
• Understanding of media and marketing, including how to define marketing / media KPIs  
• Experience working effectively with data science teams 
• Proven critical thinking and proven-solving skills 

Preferred Qualifications    

• Experience working and leading cross-functional teams to translate business needs into data requirements 
• Familiarity or experience with front-end web development and user experience design 
• Knowledge of Databricks and AWS Cloud Services   
• Knowledge of digital ad serving, tracking and implementation

Disability accommodation for employment applications

The Walt Disney Company and its Affiliated Companies are Equal Employment Opportunity employers and welcome all job seekers including individuals with disabilities and veterans with disabilities. If you have a disability and believe you need a reasonable accommodation in order to search for a job opening or apply for a position, email Candidate.Accommodations@Disney.com with your request. This email address is not for general employment inquiries or correspondence. We will only respond to those requests that are related to the accessibility of the online application system due to a disability.

The Walt Disney Company 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.