Senior R&D Program Manager

SAS • Cary, NC

7d • Hybrid

About The Position

The R&D Foundation Program and Project Management team is looking for a Senior R&D Program Manager to support Product Security efforts in our division. This is a critical role working in partnership with peers and leaders to maintain compliance with SAS product security policies, advance our overall security posture, and maintain alignment with corresponding resources across R&D. Our highly collaborative team enables SAS engineering teams to be at their best, maximize their results, innovate, and continuously improve their ability to execute efficiently.

Requirements

• Eight years of experience in a technical project management role.
• Bachelors in a quantitative field, preferably in Computer Science or a related discipline.
• Excellent competence in technical project management
• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• Excellent negotiation and organizational abilities
• Excellent decision-making ability
• Excellent risk management skills
• An equivalent combination of related education, training and experience may be considered in place of the above qualifications.

Nice To Haves

• Building Trusting Relationships: Building Trusting Relationships. Using appropriate interpersonal styles to establish effective relationships with customers and internal partners; interacting with others in a way that promotes openness and trust and gives them confidence in one’s intentions.
• Communication: Conveying information and ideas clearly and concisely to individuals or groups in an engaging manner that helps them understand and retain the message; listening actively to others.
• Driving for Results: Setting high goals for personal and group accomplishment; using measurement methods to monitor progress toward goals; tenaciously working to meet or exceed goals while deriving satisfaction from that achievement and continuous improvement.
• Emotional Intelligence Essentials: Establishing and sustaining trusting relationships by accurately perceiving and interpreting own and others’ emotions and behavior; leveraging insights to effectively manage own responses so that one’s behavior matches one’s values and delivers intended results.
• Strong strategic thinking skills
• Strong leadership skills
• May serve as a coach to their peers and project teams across a variety of methodologies and processes.
• Experience with the Agile methodology and ability to direct/coach teams in the use of Agile methodology strongly preferred.
• Experience leveraging Generative AI technologies (e.g., Microsoft 365 Copilot, AI-assisted analytics, workflow automation, and large language models) to improve program delivery, stakeholder communications, operational efficiency, decision-making, and reporting across complex R&D initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate cross-functional product security programs across the Foundation Division, partnering with Product Security Architects, engineering teams, Project & Program Management, and leadership to drive secure product delivery.
• Collaborate with Engineering, Product Security, and Product Management to define priorities, align roadmaps, and execute security initiatives that reduce risk and support business objectives.
• Drive planning, execution, and delivery of security-focused projects, balancing scope, schedule, resources, dependencies, and technical requirements across multiple teams.
• Facilitate communication, decision-making, risk management, and issue resolution among stakeholders, proactively identifying obstacles and driving mitigation strategies.
• Partner with leadership to assess resource needs, manage program capacity, and coordinate efforts across domestic and international teams.
• Establish and maintain program governance, including roadmaps, project plans, project risk registers, remediation tracking, metrics, and executive status reporting.
• Serve as a central point of coordination across Product Security, Engineering, Legal, Compliance, Cloud Operations, and other key stakeholders to ensure alignment and successful execution.
• Leverage program management best practices, operational processes, and continuous improvement initiatives to increase the effectiveness, scalability, and predictability of product security efforts.
• Translate complex technical and security concepts into actionable plans, clear communications, and measurable outcomes for technical and executive audiences.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, prescription, dental and vision plans.
• Medical plan options include: PPO with low annual deductible and copays.
• HDHP combined with a health savings account with a contribution from SAS (no access to on-site health care center).
• Onsite Health Care Center (HQ) that’s free to employees and family members enrolled in the PPO plan. There's a pharmacy too! Not local to HQ? The pharmacy will ship prescriptions for no additional charge!
• An industry-leading 401k plan.
• Tuition Assistance Program and programs and resources to support your development
• Generous time away including vacation time, a variety of paid holidays, and our much-loved U.S. Winter Wellness Break between December 25 and January 1.
• Volunteer Time Off, parental leave and unlimited paid sick days.
• Generous childcare benefits for all full-time employees.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior