Senior R&D Program Manager

Senior R&D Program Manager - Cary, NC Hybrid

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About the job

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.

As aSenior R&D Program Manager you will:

• 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.

Required qualifications

• 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.

Additional competencies, knowledge and skills

• 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.
• You’re curious, passionate, authentic and accountable. These are our values and influence everything we do.

World-class benefits

Highlights include...

• 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.

You are welcome here.

At SAS, it’s not about fitting into our culture - it’s about adding to it. We believe our people make the difference. Our inclusive workforce brings together unique talents and inspires teams to create amazing software that reflects the diversity of our users and customers.

Additional Information:

To qualify, applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States, and should not require, now or in the future, sponsorship for employment visa status. SAS is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to any characteristic protected by law. Read more: Know Your Rights.

Resumes may be considered in the order they are received. SAS employees performing certain job functions may require access to technology or software subject to export or import regulations. To comply with these regulations, SAS may obtain nationality or citizenship information from applicants for employment. SAS collects this information solely for trade law compliance purposes and does not use it to discriminate unfairly in the hiring process.

SAS only sends emails from verified “sas.com” email addresses and never asks for sensitive, personal information or money. If you have any doubts about the authenticity of any type of communication from, or on behalf of SAS, please contact [email protected].

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