Sr. Portfolio Program Manager - R&D

Job description

Our Mission: 6sense's mission is to multiply what matters: growth, retention, and efficiency. We envision a future where companies, teams and people reach their full potential. Our People: People are the heart and soul of 6sense. We serve with passion and purpose. We live by our Being 6sense values of Win as One Team, Stay Curious, Do The Right Thing, Own the Outcome, and Create Belonging. Every 6sensor plays a part in defining the future of our industry-leading technology. 6sense is a place where difference-makers roll up their sleeves, take risks, act with integrity, and measure success by the value we create for our customers. We want 6sense to be the best chapter of your career. About the Role : We are seeking a Senior Portfolio Program Manager to provide standing, exception-based orchestration across an assigned Research & Development (R&D) pillar. Reporting to the Head of Program Management, this individual contributor partners with Product and Engineering Pillar Leaders to maintain a connected view of portfolio commitments, dependencies, risks, capacity, readiness, and key decisions while improving delivery predictability and organizational effectiveness. Combining Agile coaching with portfolio program management, the role helps teams strengthen planning discipline, execution health, and continuous improvement while translating team-level insights into actionable portfolio visibility and leadership decision support. The role also serves as a champion for AI-enabled Program Management, continuously identifying and introducing automation, emerging technologies, and workflow improvements that increase scalability, operational efficiency, and decision-making effectiveness. The Portfolio Program Manager coordinates, synthesizes, and escalates material exceptions across teams, product areas, pillars, and functions. Accountability for product strategy, roadmap priorities, customer outcomes, engineering architecture, technical design, staffing, performance management, team execution, Scrum practices, backlog management, Jira hygiene, funding decisions, launch approvals, and risk acceptance remains with the appropriate Product, Engineering leaders. End-to-end ownership of strategic initiatives is assumed only when explicitly assigned. Key Responsibilities : • Partner with Product and Engineering Pillar Leaders to establish and maintain portfolio baselines, including commitments, milestones, dependencies, ownership, readiness expectations, capacity assumptions, and success measures. • Maintain visibility into portfolio commitments and execution progress, surfacing material variances and coordinating appropriate change-management actions when scope, timeline, resource, or delivery commitments materially change. • Establish and continuously improve portfolio metrics, dashboards, reporting practices, automation, and AI-enabled workflows that strengthen portfolio visibility, decision-making, execution transparency, and operational efficiency. • Identify, evaluate, and introduce AI, automation, and emerging technologies that improve Program Management effectiveness, scalability, decision-making, and operational efficiency across the R&D pillar. • Partner with R&D Operating System teams to improve data quality, portfolio tooling, process standards, reporting, and adoption of portfolio management practices. • Establish and maintain visibility into cross-team and cross-pillar dependencies, ensuring ownership, impacts, required dates, and status are understood and tracked. • Coordinate dependency management across teams and pillars, facilitate alignment, resolution discussions, and escalate unresolved risks, impacts, and decisions through established governance forums. • Lead portfolio reviews focused on material changes, risks, dependencies, readiness gaps, capacity conflicts, and decisions requiring leadership attention. • Facilitate scaled planning, portfolio governance, and synchronization forums that improve alignment, transparency, and execution across the pillar.<span data-ccp-prop