Manager, Systems Engineering (DCL New Build)

The Walt Disney Company is a world-class entertainment and technological leader. Walt’s passion was to continuously envision new ways to move audiences around the world—a passion that remains our touchstone in an enterprise that stretches from theme parks, resorts and a cruise line to sports, news, movies, and a variety of other businesses. Uniting each endeavor is a commitment to creating and delivering unforgettable experiences — and we’re constantly looking for new ways to enhance these exciting experiences. Bring your individual talents here and discover for yourself why a career with Disney is the opportunity you’ve been looking for. 

The Manager, Systems Engineering leads a team of Technical Project Managers and Engineers responsible for application deployment, integration, automation, validation, and commissioning activities across Disney Cruise Line New Build initiatives. The role partners closely with Systems Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), application teams, and business stakeholders to drive an automation-first approach to how shipboard applications are deployed, tested, and commissioned throughout the ship lifecycle. The Manager will also champion the next generation of deployment and commissioning tooling, applying modern engineering practices and emerging technologies at every stage of a ship's life, from initial concept through maiden voyage.  

The candidate must possess the ability to share and communicate ideas clearly, both orally and in writing, to business sponsors and partners, technical resources, and executives, in clear concise language that is the effective for each respective group.  

The Manager must be able to manage competing priorities across New Build capital efforts.  An ability to balance technology and business priorities is key for this role.  

Responsibilities and Expectations: 

In this role, you will manage a professional engineering team and Project Managers responsible for the end-to-end lifecycle of technical solutions that support Disney Cruise Line New Build initiatives, ensuring quality, volume, and timeliness objectives are consistently met. You will guide and persuade partners and stakeholders, adapt to evolving project priorities, and create a collaborative, customer-focused environment where creative, detail-oriented engineers can do their best work. Success requires strong technical depth, clear communication, and the ability to plan, prioritize, and hold yourself and others accountable.  

 

• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of Technical Project Managers and partner with Systems Engineers responsible for application deployment, integration, and commissioning across the New Build portfolio.  

• Manage and oversee application integration efforts across the Disney Cruise Line New Ship Build projects, ensuring systems function as a unified platform across all stages of the application deployment pipeline. 

• Provide governance and leadership across application implementation activities, mentoring the team to support ship readiness while ensuring alignment with delivery milestones and the maiden voyage timeline. 

• Lead the design of an automation-first deployment pipeline strategy, ensuring alignment with application teams, release managers, business stakeholders, and technical operations.  

• Guide installation of operating systems, databases, and utilities software, and represent New Build in design discussions for systems and infrastructure solutions. 

• Partner with product, application and business teams to define strategies, expectations, and priorities, translating organizational goals into clear outcomes and roadmaps for your team. 

• Oversee financials and budgets for new build, including forecasting, accruals, and cost optimization for systems and services 

• Serve as a trusted technical liaison across Disney Cruise Line, Walt Disney Imagineering, third-party vendors, and international stakeholders. 

• Champion new initiatives that advance the organization toward the desired state architecture and delivery model. 

• Partner with Systems Engineering (SE) and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teams, including a dotted-line working relationship with SRE engineers focused on developing deployment and commissioning tools to modernize build, test, and deployment pipelines supporting shipboard systems.  

• Partner with Systems Engineering leadership to continuously simplify, automate, and standardize across the Disney Cruise Line ecosystem through infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD pipelines, scripting, and emerging technologies. 

• Foster a platform-engineering mindset, equipping teams with shared platforms, automation, and self-service capabilities aligned to the desired state architecture.  

• Sponsor adoption of emerging tools and platforms that accelerate engineering productivity, reduce manual effort, and improve confidence across build, test, and release.  

• Provide advisory leadership by designing and recommending delivery strategies for external partners, supporting execution without direct ownership. 

• Support Executive leadership by clearly articulating risks, tradeoffs, and long‑term strategic decisions. 

• Serve as an escalation point for application readiness and testing activities, partnering with business and technical teams to remove blockers and maintain delivery momentum. 

• Develop resource plan to support the build of new ships.  Ensuring smooth and efficient transition to operational teams. 

Required Qualifications:

• Minimum 8 years of related technology experience with at least 3+ years leading projects and coordinating efforts across diverse technical and business teams.  

• Hands-on experience with automation and infrastructure tooling (e.g., Ansible, Terraform, Kubernetes, Docker, configuration management, and CI/CD practices).  

• Demonstrated experience guiding system or infrastructure architecture, including scalability, performance optimization, and security best practices.  

• Excellent communication and persuasive leadership skills, with the ability to influence a matrixed organization and collaborate with stakeholders, vendors, and customers.  

• Strong problem-solving, analytical, and decision-making skills, with accountability for team performance and delivery outcomes.  

• Experience managing budgets and financial processes for technology portfolios, including forecasting and accruals.  

• Practical experience with Agile or similar software delivery methodologies and working with cross-functional delivery teams.  

• Manage projects in a multi-vendor environment including offshore teams.  

• Proficient with scripting (e.g., Python, Bash, PowerShell) and modern version control workflows (Git).  

• Exposure to AI-assisted development, testing, or operations tooling.  
• 10% Travel

 

Preferred Qualifications:  

• Prior experience in travel, hospitality, cruise, or related industries supporting large-scale guest or customer experiences.  

• A bias toward experimentation and adoption of emerging tools that improve delivery speed, quality, and engineer experience 

• Background managing or partnering with software engineering teams delivering highly scalable, high-volume applications and platforms.  

• Industry certifications in cloud, systems engineering, or related technologies (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes).  

• Master’s degree in related discipline or equivalent work experience  

• Experience in ship build projects and process.  

• Familiarity with shipboard deployment environments, and/or with global, multi-site rollouts.  

• Familiarity with cybersecurity-by-design principles, including IACS E26/E27 or similar maritime frameworks.  

 

Required Education:

• Bachelor’s Degree+ in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent work experience.

#TECHATDISNEY

The hiring range for this position in Orlando, FL is $135,200 to $181,200 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.