Manager, Taxonomy

At Netflix, we strive to be the most engaging entertainment platform and storyteller marketer in the world. A big part of that engagement is the interaction our members have with our content and how they discover a new story they'll love. Behind that discovery is a wealth of creative material -- images, clips, trailers, featurettes, synopses, factoids, tags, and genre categorizations -- that leads the industry in its scale and utilization. We are evolving and creating internal products to improve the efficiency of creative assets conceptualization, development, production, and deployment for on and off-service title discovery. In this role, you will lead the team responsible for driving the metadata strategy and construction of taxonomies that will support these efforts.

We are seeking a Taxonomy Manager who has experience with and passion for leading a team of Taxonomists who bring structure to large-scale taxonomies and metadata models. Your experience includes implementing best practices and driving adoption of standardized taxonomies and metadata models.  You must be adept at leading a team that is responsible for setting up users for success in applying both objective and subjective points of metadata and ensuring data integrity.

The ideal candidate will be confident in making informed decisions. They possess the communication skills to successfully advocate for and gain acceptance of new taxonomy-related processes and governance policies. They must be concise, definitive, and convincing in their well-founded recommendations.

As the Taxonomy Manager, you will be the voice of taxonomy in Product Discovery and Promotion – and will work at all levels of the business. You’ll help to drive alignment and build strategic support for foundational taxonomy initiatives with leadership in product, engineering and data teams. You’ll also partner with project and development teams to help inform prioritisation, planning and scoping of taxonomy projects and initiatives – and ensure timely delivery from your team. Working closely with other leaders on our metadata platform and tooling, you’ll help ensure we introduce user-focused, impactful and scalable solutions for applying, leveraging and distributing taxonomy to business problems.

You are comfortable working in an environment where giving and receiving feedback is the norm. Successful leaders do not shy away from difficult conversations.

Reporting to the PMR Metadata Innovation Senior Manager, this is an exempt role. Preferred location is Los Gatos or Los Angeles, but will consider US Remote, with some required travel to California.

Responsibilities include:

• Leading a team of Taxonomy Strategists and Taxonomists, who are responsible for developing, maintaining and governing taxonomies, controlled vocabularies and metadata models related to technical, administrative and creative attributes.
• Partnering with Product Managers on the sizing, resourcing and prioritization of taxonomy related projects.
• Acting as a strategic advisor for stakeholders, continuously reevaluating our taxonomies and metadata models to meet the evolving needs of the business.
• Partnering with other Metadata Innovation Managers, develop the short and long term roadmaps for taxonomies, metadata models and ontological solutions that will support Netflix’s Evolution of Tagging, which will include machine learning models.
• Advocating for shared taxonomies and metadata models across tools and teams, and evangelizing its value.
• Ensuring the team’s work is defined such that its integrity will not be compromised by cultural bias.
• Building a diverse team: hiring, developing and managing high performers.

Requirements:

• 5+ years of experience leading a team responsible for developing, managing and governing complex, enterprise level taxonomies, metadata models and ontologies.
• Experience providing strategic vision for taxonomy and ontological solutions.
• Experience being a strong strategic partner to cross-functional leaders
• Strong relationship management and expectation-setting skills.
• Track record of modeling accountability and ability to collaborate effectively with, influence, and be a valued thought partner to stakeholders.
• Experience managing multiple stakeholders expectations and priorities.
• Experience identifying, innovating and developing opportunities for efficiency and increased impact for the team.
• An inclusive leader who will be a great steward of the Netflix culture while also helping it to shape and evolve it over time.
• Experience working in a high-volume content environment.
• Experience working with systems shared across internal teams and vendors
• Excellent communication skills: written, verbal and presentation
• Experience leading a team responsible for supporting work in a global context.
• Experience with software development cycles and practices.

Nice to Have:

• Masters degree in related fields: Data Management, Computer Science, Library & Information Science
• Experience working in the entertainment industry.
• Experience working with Machine Learning and/or Artificial Intelligence capabilities.
• Experience with Multilingual Taxonomies.

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