Senior Program Manager, Content Platform
Irvine, CA

Job Description

Blizzard Entertainment is looking for a seasoned Program Manager to add their skills to our Content Platform team in Battle.net & Online Products. The Content Platform portfolio of products help power extended experiences across Blizzard's entire portfolio of games and entertainment products. Our services enable the creation and distribution of news, patch notes, comics, content-sharing, and asynchronous discussions across dozens of Blizzard websites, mobile apps, and games.

Our ideal candidate is an experienced program manager who passionately believes in the power of content to take player engagement to the next level. To fill this role successfully, you will demonstrate excellence at program management, and experience in delivering on a vision, roadmaps, and multi-year initiatives on a given product.

You can think strategically and can align a product roadmap with key objectives and initiatives at the department level, helping stakeholders understand the value of your products to a broader mission. You invest yourself in building strong relationships, and you feel equally comfortable presenting high-level product direction and detailed project plans to rooms full of stakeholders.

You're excited to help refine our overall content management and discussions offerings, to research (and present on) user journeys. Most importantly, you understand that good platform solutions don't just solve individual problems; they address multiple broad issues all at once.

The Content Platform team is a group of honest, fun-loving, iteration-focused folk who don't take ourselves too seriously. We're searching for teammates who share our curiosity, eagerness, and willingness to explore the future. Our work plays an integral role in Blizzard's journey from game developer to global entertainment company: we're spearheading the development of new discussion venues, guild and interactive social features in our games, and enabling our content to reach more devices, more channels, and more players than ever before.

RESPONSIBILITIES

* Manage the overall lifecycle of a product within a specific Battle.net & Online Products portfolio, envisioning, evangelizing, and implementing a strategy for the product in cooperation with team leads and key stakeholders
* Steward development of new features or enhancements to the product from conceptualization, conducting research, gathering requirements, authoring functional specifications, conducting implementation reviews, and coordinating releases
* Act as primary point of contact and relationship manager for the product, aligning with (and sometimes driving) development efforts across multiple Blizzard development teams to successfully release new products and features on time and within budget
* Act as champion for significant projects, programs, and business initiatives using demonstrated creativity and ingenuity
* Provide motivation and direction to ensure that project goals, objectives, milestones, and deliverables are clearly communicated and achieved
* Gather, document, and organize business, functional, and any creative requirements for new projects from project stakeholders
* Gather estimates from resources and create project documentation (scope document, requirements document, work breakdown structure)
* Identify, track, manage, and resolve project roadblocks or impediments
* Ensure that solutions are of acceptable quality
* Follow change management process to capture change requests, communicate impact, request stakeholder decisions, and execute changes if applicable
* Work with other program managers to plan effective capacity utilization
* Coordinate, track, and manage the activities of project team members to ensure that project tasks are completed on time, within scope, and at acceptable quality
* Contribute to a positive work environment

REQUIREMENTS

* Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
* A minimum of 5 years' experience working in web site, web platform, and mobile application development as a program manager or product manager
* Experience managing products and projects in a team-based, highly collaborative environment
* Skilled in risk assessment and management
* Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English
* Reliable understanding of software development processes, project management methodologies, and performance management
* Familiarity with business analysis skillset, and demonstrated experience in applying it within a product lifecycle
* Self-motivated with strong initiative
* Curiosity about new technologies, process methodology, and online communities
* Able to work in a fast-paced, dynamic work environment

PLUSES

* Passion for and experience with online video games and games as a service
* Scrum Master Certification
* Scrum Product Owner Certification
* Kanban experience
* Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification
* Expertise in issue tracking software, and other online project management tools
* Education or professional background in Business Analysis