Director, Decision Science Technology

The Walt Disney Company

Director leading AI-powered software applications for Disney's Decision Science team while driving technological vision and team excellence. Overseeing cloud-native architectures and delivery of decision science solutions.

Posted 5/27/2026full-timeLake Buena Vista • California, Florida • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $217,800 - $292,100 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSCloudDockerKubernetesMicroservicesPythonReactSDLCSQL

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Develop and keep relevant a vision for team in a fast-paced, complex and evolving arena.
Foster a high-performing team of technologists and drive a culture of excellence, innovation, and deep collaboration with the science organization, the AI/ML engineering organization, and all partner teams.
Own the technology delivery for a portfolio of decision science applications driven by a range of science algorithms.
Deliver across the entire development lifecycle, from technical design to deployment, for intelligent applications featuring quantitative AI/ML, agentic workflows and conversational AI.
Provide ambidextrous technology & data oversight.
Manage a high-performing team in a matrixed environment.
Lead, mentor, and grow an evolving & blended team of software engineers, data engineers, solution architects and platform specialists.
Cultivate a unified, agile culture that excels at tackling both complex data challenges and sophisticated application development.
Oversee the technical, data, and system architectures for analytic platforms and solutions.
Provide strategic leadership on the long-term technical vision, including data modeling, microservices architecture, API design, and the advanced tooling required to enable intelligent, interactive applications.
Foster a culture of innovation by leading the adoption of AI tools within the development process (e.g., code assistants, automated testing) to enhance team efficiency, speed of code development, test creation and execution, and improved documentation.
Develop roadmaps for reusable capabilities, tools, and agents to harmonize with the portfolio milestones & deliverables while simultaneously raising the bar on standard expectations for deployed solutions, including automated metrics and validation, user-algorithm interactions, and standard features for robust, reliable and secure solution design.
Ensure the reliability, scalability, and security of all production applications.
Champion the development of standard operating procedures, quality assurance, and automated monitoring to maintain a healthy and sustainable technology portfolio.
Define success metrics and OKRs, establishing clear baselines and targets, and continuously tracking outcomes to inform prioritization and optimize results.
Proactively identify and remediate technical debt within the existing products.
Balance the "velocity of new features" with the "stability of the core," ensuring that our internal SaaS products remain modern, patchable, and secure.
Collaborate closely with peers across organizations to ensure successful product delivery.
Partner closely across functional areas to lead directly and via collaboration in a matrixed environment, with emphasis on strong communication, interpersonal collaboration and change management skills.

Requirements

What you’ll need

12+ years in software engineering, including hands-on system design and delivery of distributed, cloud-based applications.
Experience leading multiple engineering teams (application, platform, data, DevOps) through managers, with accountability for end-to-end delivery and operations.
Expertise in modern architectures and practices, including microservices, APIs, cloud-native design, and scalable, resilient systems.
Strong technical stack experience, including Python, React (or similar), SQL/Snowflake, CI/CD, Docker/Kubernetes, and AWS (or equivalent).
Proven ownership of engineering strategy and architecture, including roadmaps, platform modernization, and technical debt management.
Experience delivering and operating enterprise-scale platforms, with focus on reliability, performance, scalability, and security.
Track record of building and leading high-performing engineering orgs, mentoring leaders and driving engineering excellence through metrics and standards.
Strong Agile/SDLC execution, including CI/CD, automated testing, and observability.
Excellent stakeholder leadership and communication, translating technical decisions into business impact.
Experience leading large-scale transformation, including cloud migration and engineering modernization.
Ability to manage portfolios, including prioritization, budgets, and delivery across multiple teams.
Set the strategic direction for generative AI adoption across the software development lifecycle while leading the delivery of enterprise-grade AI products powered by sophisticated agentic workflows.

Benefits

Comp & perks

A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package
full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

software engineeringsystem designcloud-based applicationsmicroservicesAPIscloud-native designPythonReactSQLAWS

Soft Skills

leadershipmentoringcommunicationcollaborationchange managementstrategic directioninnovationagile executionstakeholder managementproblem-solving