Research Producization Principal

Job Posting Title:
Research Producization Principal

Req ID:
10159875

Job Description:

About the Role & Team:

Walt Disney Imagineering makes the impossible possible, by combining innovation and storytelling to bring Disney stories, characters, and worlds to life. Imagineering is the master planning, creative development, design, engineering, production, project management, and research and development arm of The Walt Disney Company. Its talented Imagineers are responsible for the creation - from concept initiation through installation - of all Disney Resorts, theme parks and attractions, real estate developments, regional entertainment venues, and new media projects. Disney Imagineers are uniquely talented individuals who bring together the best aspects of creativity, innovation, and passion.

At Imagineering Research and Development, our mission is to use technology to build new experiences for our Guests and new tools for Imagineers and the Cast Members who power our parks. R&D is a team of engineers, designers, artists, and scientists who share a passion for solving hard problems and building ground-breaking experiences.

Disney Research Imagineering is seeking a Principal R&D Imagineer, Research Productization to help transform breakthrough research into high-impact product opportunities across The Walt Disney Company.

Disney Research Imagineering develops novel technical capabilities that can unlock new forms of creativity, storytelling, production, operational intelligence, guest experience, and enterprise impact. Many of these ideas begin as ambitious research explorations before there is a clearly defined product, stakeholder request, roadmap, or adoption path.

This role exists to bridge that gap.

The Principal R&D Imagineer, Research Productization will partner with research teams, technical leaders, stakeholders, Tech Studio, AI product and engineering leads, and a Disney Research Technical Program Manager to shape emerging research into compelling, usable, strategically valuable product opportunities. This person will help move research-originated from abstract technical possibility to stakeholder understanding, product clarity, prototype validation, and production readiness.

This is not a traditional product management role focused primarily on requirements intake or backlog ownership. It is a translational product strategy role for research-driven innovation. The person in this role must be able to understand emerging technical capabilities, identify where they map to meaningful business and user needs, frame the opportunity clearly, create tangible product concepts and prototypes, engage stakeholders, and help guide selected initiatives toward production in partnership with a Disney Research TPM and Tech Studio.

The ideal candidate combines strong product judgment, excellent usability instincts, AI fluency, rapid prototyping ability, visual storytelling, stakeholder engagement, and executive communication. They should be able to preserve the ambition of big research ideas while making them understandable, usable, technically credible, and adoptable across the organization.

This role will Report to The Lab Director of Disney Research.

This is a Full-Time Position

What You Will Do:

Research-to-Product Translation

- Partner with Disney Research Imagineering teams to understand emerging technical capabilities, prototypes, research directions, and exploratory ideas.
- Translate abstract or early-stage research into clear product opportunities, use cases, product narratives, and adoption pathways.
- Identify where research-originated work can solve meaningful stakeholder, user, creative, operational, or business problems across Disney.
- Help determine the appropriate product form for emerging capabilities, including internal tools, AI assistants, creative systems, workflow products, platform capabilities, decision-support tools, or productionized services.
- Shape initiatives into product directions that can be evaluated, adopted, and scaled.
- Help researchers incorporate product thinking, user experience considerations, workflow realities, and stakeholder needs earlier in the development process.

Product Strategy and Opportunity Framing

- Develop product theses for selected research initiatives, including target users, primary use cases, value propositions, product principles, adoption barriers, and success measures.
- Frame research work in terms of business impact, user value, creative leverage, operational efficiency, strategic differentiation, and enterprise adoption.
- Create clear narratives that help stakeholders and senior leaders understand why a research capability matters and how it could create value at Disney scale.
- Evaluate whether emerging ideas represent narrow features, broader product opportunities, or foundational capabilities.
- Push constructively beyond narrow stakeholder requests to help partners understand larger opportunities enabled by emerging technology.
- Balance ambition with practical adoption considerations, ensuring product directions are both visionary and usable.

Stakeholder Engagement

- Engage directly with stakeholders across Disney business units to understand needs, workflows, pain points, constraints, and opportunities.
- Facilitate productive conversations between researchers, engineers, business stakeholders, Tech Studio partners, and executive sponsors.
- Bring stakeholders along in understanding technical opportunities, especially when the work is novel, abstract, or outside existing product categories.
- Translate stakeholder needs back to research teams in ways that sharpen product direction without prematurely reducing the scope or ambition of the research.
- Build trust with partners by combining strategic imagination, product discipline, and clear communication.
- Help identify early adopters, pilot partners, use cases, and organizational pathways for promising research initiatives.

User Experience, Prototyping, and Product Artifacts

- Apply strong usability judgment and product experience sensibility to early-stage research concepts.
- Use AI tools, rapid prototyping platforms, design tools, wireframes, draft UIs, workflow sketches, diagrams, and visual storytelling to make product ideas tangible.
- Create lightweight prototypes, conceptual interfaces, user journeys, mockups, demos, and product briefs to support stakeholder understanding and decision- making.
- Identify potential barriers related to usability, workflow integration, trust, explainability, user adoption, and operational fit.
- Help research teams think not only about what the technology can do, but how people will actually experience, trust, and use it.
- Develop decks, visuals, narratives, and other communication materials that clarify product direction and support leadership alignment.

Tech Studio and AI Product / Engineering Alignment

- Serve as a bridge between Disney Research Imagineering and Tech Studio, particularly AI product and engineering leads.
- Partner with Tech Studio to understand product strategy, engineering patterns, AI platform capabilities, technical constraints, production requirements, and integration opportunities.
- Engage AI product and engineering leads early enough to inform feasibility, scalability, architecture considerations, and production readiness.
- Translate research-originated opportunities into product and technical terms that can be evaluated by Tech Studio partners.
- Help identify where emerging research aligns with existing or future Tech Studio roadmaps, AI platforms, internal tools, or enterprise capabilities.

- Support decisions around handoff models, co-development models, incubation paths, and production pathways between Disney Research Imagineering and Tech Studio.
- Help ensure promising research initiatives are shaped with enough product clarity and technical credibility to move toward implementation

Partnership with Disney Research TPM

- Work closely with a Disney Research Technical Program Manager to shepherd selected research initiatives toward production readiness.
- Co-manage the research-to-product process by defining product intent, user value, stakeholder alignment, experience direction, and adoption logic.
- Partner with the TPM on initiative planning, milestones, dependencies, risks, stakeholder coordination, and transition points.
- Clarify what must be true for a research prototype to move into a production pathway, including user validation, stakeholder sponsorship, technical maturity, and organizational readiness.
- Help ensure each selected initiative has a clear product narrative, stakeholder need, prototype strategy, success criteria, and path to next-stage development.

Required Qualifications & Skills:

- 8+ years of experience in product strategy, product management, product innovation, UX strategy, technical product development, or related roles.
- Demonstrated ability to translate ambiguous, early-stage, or technically complex ideas into clear product opportunities.
- Strong product judgment, especially in emerging technology, AI-enabled products, internal tools, enterprise platforms, creative technology, or innovation environments.
- Strong usability instincts and ability to evaluate product concepts from a user experience and adoption perspective.
- Experience creating product artifacts such as opportunity briefs, product narratives, user journeys, wireframes, draft interfaces, prototypes, demos, and executive decks.
- Comfort using AI tools and rapid prototyping tools to accelerate product exploration, concept development, UI ideation, and storytelling.
- Strong ability to engage stakeholders, understand business needs, and translate those needs into product direction.
- Ability to constructively challenge narrow requirements while maintaining trust and momentum with partners.
- Excellent written, verbal, visual, and executive communication skills.

- Ability to collaborate effectively with researchers, engineers, product leaders, TPMs, designers, business stakeholders, and senior leaders.
- Comfort operating in ambiguous environments where the product category, user need, technical path, and adoption model may still be emerging.
- Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple initiatives at different stages of maturity.

Preferred Qualifications & Skills:

- 8 years of experience
- Experience working with AI, machine learning, generative AI, creative technology, media technology, enterprise AI tools, or advanced technical platforms.
- Experience in an applied research, innovation lab, incubation, emerging technology, or advanced engineering environment.
- Experience moving prototypes, proof-of-concepts, or research-originated ideas toward production.
- Experience partnering with engineering teams on production feasibility, platform integration, technical tradeoffs, or productization planning.
- Experience with internal tools, enterprise platforms, workflow products, creative systems, or decision-support products.
- Experience creating stakeholder demos, leadership presentations, product strategy documents, and visual narratives for complex technical work.
- Experience influencing without direct authority across a large, matrixed organization.
- Familiarity with design tools, collaborative whiteboarding platforms, AI-assisted design tools, prototyping platforms, and lightweight user validation methods.
- Strong understanding of how to balance innovation, usability, stakeholder value, and technical feasibility.

Education

- Bachelor’s degree in Product Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Science, Engineering, Business, Media Technology, Design Strategy, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience Required
- Advanced degree or equivalent experience in product strategy, design, technology, innovation, or business is preferred

Additional Information:

- Disney offers a rewards package to help you live your best life. This includes health and savings benefits, educational opportunities, and special extras that only Disney can provide. Learn more about our benefits and perks at https://jobs.disneycareers.com/benefits.

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The hiring range for this position in California is $188,400 - 252,600 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.

Job Posting Segment:
WDI R&D and Tech Studio

Job Posting Primary Business:
R&D and Tech Studio (WDI)

Primary Job Posting Category:
User Experience Engineer

Employment Type:
Full time

Primary City, State, Region, Postal Code:
Glendale, CA, USA

Alternate City, State, Region, Postal Code:

Date Posted:
2026-09-25