Senior Business Planning Program Manager – Product Development

Why PlayStation?

PlayStation isn’t just the Best Place to Play — it’s also the Best Place to Work. Today, we’re recognized as a global leader in entertainment producing the PlayStation family of products and services including PlayStation®5, PlayStation®4, PlayStation®VR, PlayStation®Plus, acclaimed PlayStation software titles from PlayStation Studios, and more.

PlayStation also strives to create an inclusive environment that empowers employees and embraces diversity. We welcome and encourage everyone who has a passion for innovation, technology, and play to explore our open positions and join our growing global team.

The PlayStation brand falls under Sony Interactive Entertainment, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation.

Location: Flexible, US West coast

Position Overview

The Sr. Business Planning Program Manager role within the Product Development group is responsible for driving execution rigor, transparency, and operational excellence across product development programs. This role is not a technical role; instead, it serves as the operational backbone of the organization, ensuring reliable status reporting and effective cross‑functional coordination.

This position partners closely with multiple partner teams to manage rhythm of business, team budgets and forecasts, and business planning needs. The Sr. Program Manager ensures leadership has a clear, current view of program spend, return on investment, and financial exposure, while enabling the teams to stay focused on delivery.

A successful candidate is highly organized, detail‑oriented, comfortable working across multiple partners, and capable of operating in a fast‑paced product environment without ambiguity.

Principal Duties / Responsibilities

Business Planning / PMO responsibilities

• Serve as the primary liaison between Product Development and the broader PMO, ensuring alignment on program status, governance, and reporting standards.
• Consolidate and maintain executive‑level program dashboards, readouts, and recurring status reports.
• Coordinate cross‑functional reporting across Finance, Budget, Operations, and Business teams to ensure a single source of truth.
• Represent the PD team in PMO operating rhythms, including program reviews, governance checkpoints, and portfolio‑level cadences.
• Proactively identify execution risks, resource gaps, and operational issues; call out with clear, data‑driven recommendations.

Program and Product Margin Financial Ownership

• Own end‑to‑end cost program budget management for engineering programs from concept through launch.
• Manage and track NRE, vendor, development, and tooling spend.
• Maintain cost and COGS models and drive variance analysis against approved business plans. Ensure alignment to target COGS and margin objectives; identify cost risks early.
• Support pricing decisions and advocate for financially sound product trade‑offs.
• Provide structured insights to support decision‑making at key development gates.

Department Budget Management

• Manage forecasting and tracking for the Product Development department budget (headcount, NRE, contractors, CapEx).
• Partner with Finance on quarterly outlooks, accruals, and annual planning.

Executive Reporting

• Deliver clear program and portfolio‑level financial reporting to leadership and finance partners.

Required Knowledge / Skills

• Experience in program management, operations, or PMO roles within a product consumer electronics/goods environment.
• Consistent record in managing program tracking, reporting, and execution cadence across multiple program management partners.
• Solid understanding of budget management, forecasting, and financial tracking.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to distill complex information into clear executive‑level summaries.
• High attention to detail with strong interpersonal and follow‑through skills.
• Proficiency with standard program management and reporting tools (e.g., JIRA, Confluence, Excel/Sheets, PowerPoint/Slides).
• Ability to operate effectively in a matrixed organization with competing priorities.
• Comfortable driving transparency and accountability without direct authority.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting hardware, software, or platform product development teams.
• Prior exposure to PMO frameworks, governance models, or portfolio management.
• Experience working closely with finance or business operations teams.
• Familiarity with executive reporting, QBRs, and leadership reviews.
• Experience in consumer electronics, gaming, or technology product organizations.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in business, finance, pricing, sales operations, or a related field preferred.
• Master’s or MBA a plus.
• Proven experience in Finance, Business Planning, Program Management, Project Management, or Business Operations roles.
• Demonstrated success supporting complex, cross‑functional programs in a fast‑paced environment.

Working Conditions

• Fast‑paced, execution‑focused product development environment.
• Location: US West coast
• Travel may be required based on business needs.
• Individual contributor role with no direct people management responsibilities.

Additional Information

The estimated base pay range for this role is listed below.

$161,100 — $241,700 USD

Equal Opportunity Statement

Sony is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All persons will receive consideration for employment without regard to gender (including gender identity, gender expression and gender reassignment), race (including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin), religion or belief, marital or civil partnership status, disability, age, sexual orientation, pregnancy, maternity or parental status, trade union membership or membership in any other legally protected category.

We strive to create an inclusive environment, empower employees and embrace diversity. We encourage everyone to respond.

PlayStation is a Fair Chance employer and qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records will be considered for employment.

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