Job Summary:
The Disney Media, Entertainment, and Distribution (DMED) product team is responsible for the product strategy, definition, development, and operation of the world’s most engaging digital products, serving millions of consumers across the world across brands like ESPN, Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and more.
As a member of the Fantasy and Gaming product team within DMED, you will play a critical role in growing, improving, and monetizing the world’s leading digital sports destinations, including ESPN.com, ESPN App, ESPN Fantasy games, and more.
The Product Manager II, Fantasy Games will work with product design, engineering, QA, project management and other stakeholders to conceive, design, build, and grow digital sports games that are made available to users across ESPN Digital platforms, including the ESPN Fantasy App, ESPN App, and ESPN.com. A successful candidate in this role will serve as the day-to-day lead for active design and development of key products in the ESPN digital ecosystem.
The right candidate will be a passionate sports fan with deep knowledge of game mechanics and market trends. Furthermore, this person will have a diverse background and a track record of successfully building and managing scaled, high-quality, innovative applications, products, and services for a consumer-oriented organization. The right candidate must be a self-motivated, team player who can drive the overall business objectives of the organization. This person must be a strong communicator and able to work closely with other internal and external product and technology experts.
The Product Manager II, Games will report directly to the Director of Product Management, Fantasy Games
Responsibilities:
- Articulate a product vision for specific ESPN games and interactive experiences, partnering with Engineering, Design, Editorial, Business, and other Product teams to deliver engaging experiences on all platforms.
- Define a roadmap and execute on the development of those features and improvements, through an agile software development lifecycle, across multiple platforms concurrently.
- Write and communicate product requirements effectively to developers, designers, and stakeholders.
- Work closely with development teams on a daily basis to build and deliver features for products.
- Collect and analyze data to understand behavioral patterns of our users and use that insight to improve fan experiences and increase engagement within the Fantasy product suite.
- Balance the priorities of a diverse group of stakeholders, while still delivering high-quality products in consistent releases.
- Provide transparency and recommendations on project trade-offs, understanding and coordinating dependencies across multiple teams with competing priorities.
- Facilitate the ideation and development of new features and functionality around ESPN’s consumer-facing products.
- Become an expert in digital game mechanics and ESPN digital products.
- Be an ambassador for ESPN digital gaming and products internally and externall
Basic Qualifications:
- 3+ years of professional experience in product management.
- Demonstrated experience and knowledge driving product development.
- Previous experience managing product requirements, release deliverables, and technical documentation.
- Previous experience working with large, cross-functional, agile development teams.
- Strong communication skills, both verbal and written, with stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
- Strong ability to multi-task and context-switch with ease, in a fast-paced and ever-evolving organization.
- Demonstrated proficiency in data analysis and analytical thinking, preferably with Adobe Analytics or other similar tools.
- High level of comfort communicating with strategic partners.
- Familiarity and passion for app development on native platforms (iOS/Android).
- High energy and capable of multi-tasking and context-switching with ease, in a fast-paced and ever-evolving organization.
- Ability to operate effectively in a team-oriented and collaborative environment.
- Process-driven and extremely detail-oriented.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Passionate sports fan and regular user of ESPN products and services.
- Interest and understanding of traditional game mechanics and familiarity with social, video and console games.
- Experience playing ESPN Fantasy games across a variety of platforms.
- Basic understanding of intricacies across sports, i.e. scoring, stats, etc.
- Experience managing product requirements and release deliverables in JIRA.
- Passion for sports betting and other emerging markets within Sports.