Senior IT Program Portfolio Manager

Peraton is a next-generation national security company that drives missions of consequence spanning the globe and extending to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. As the world’s leading mission capability integrator and transformative enterprise IT provider, we deliver trusted, highly differentiated solutions and technologies to protect our nation and allies. Peraton operates at the critical nexus between traditional and nontraditional threats across all domains: land, sea, space, air, and cyberspace. The company serves as a valued partner to essential government agencies and supports every branch of the U.S. armed forces. Each day, our employees do the can’t be done by solving the most daunting challenges facing our customers. Visit peraton.com to learn how we’re keeping people around the world safe and secure.

Peraton is seeking a Senior IT Program Portfolio Manager to lead the integrated execution of a portfolio of concurrent, mission-critical IT projects for a single federal government agency customer responsible for critical national security missions. Operating in highly secure, classified environments, the Portfolio Manager is the single accountable leader and primary executive point of contact to the customer for the entire portfolio.

The Portfolio Manager owns portfolio-wide performance, delivery, financial health, workforce management, and continuous service improvement. This role directs a team of Project Managers and Functional Leads, sets portfolio priorities in alignment with the customer's mission objectives, balances resources and funding across projects, manages cross-project dependencies and risks, and ensures that every project delivers on its contractual commitments while the portfolio as a whole advances the customer's strategic IT goals.

Work Location: Hybrid at Forrestal (Washington, DC), Germantown, MD, or Northern Virginia.

 

Travel: Ability to travel up to 25% to various sites throughout the United States.

 

Day to Day Roles and Responsibilities:

Portfolio Leadership & Customer Relationship Management

• Serve as the executive-level interface to customer leadership for all projects in the portfolio, providing a single, integrated view of performance.
• Build and maintain trusted advisor relationships at senior government levels; understand the customer's national security mission priorities and translate them into portfolio objectives.
• Proactively identify portfolio-level risks, opportunities, and strategic initiatives, including opportunities to expand or improve services in support of the customer's mission.
• Lead periodic portfolio reviews, quarterly business reviews (QBRs), and executive briefings; represent Peraton's performance across all projects with accuracy and transparency.
• Serve as the final internal escalation point for project-level issues that cannot be resolved by Project Managers or Functional Leads.

Portfolio Governance, Prioritization & Integrated Planning

• Establish and lead a portfolio governance framework (e.g., portfolio management office, review boards, stage gates) that provides consistent oversight of all projects.
• Oversee compliance with the customer's governance model across the portfolio, ensuring all approvals, change authorities, and RACI responsibilities are exercised in accordance with the Statement of Work (SOW) and project requirements.
• Prioritize, sequence, and balance projects in collaboration with the customer to maximize mission value within available funding, schedule, and staffing constraints.
• Maintain an integrated portfolio master schedule; identify and manage cross-project dependencies, shared resources, and conflicting priorities.
• Standardize project management methodologies, tools, templates, and reporting across projects to ensure consistent, repeatable execution.
• Evaluate new project requests and change proposals for scope, cost, risk, and mission impact, and recommend portfolio adjustments to Peraton and customer leadership.

Service Delivery & SLA Compliance

• Ensure that all projects meet contractual Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and performance metrics across all service towers.
• Monitor portfolio health using integrated performance dashboards and key performance indicators (cost, schedule, scope, quality, and SLA attainment).
• Champion a performance management culture with open dialogue, honest reporting, and corrective action plans when project or SLA performance is at risk.
• Oversee 24/7/365 operational continuity requirements across the portfolio.
• Drive root cause analysis and problem management processes for recurring or major incidents, including those that affect multiple projects or service towers.

Financial & Contract Management

• Own the portfolio Profit & Loss (P&L), including labor, subcontractor, material, and contractor-borne costs (OEM support, spare parts, warranties, EOC infrastructure).
• Track funding, burn rates, and cost/schedule performance by project and in aggregate; forecast and reallocate resources to protect portfolio financial health.
• Manage contract modifications, task/call order execution, and funding actions across all projects in the portfolio.
• Ensure all contractual financial obligations are met.
• Provide accurate and timely portfolio-level and project-level financial reporting to Peraton leadership and the customer as required.

Workforce & Subcontractor Management

• Recruit, develop, retain, and lead a multi-disciplinary team of Project Managers, Functional Leads, engineers, and operational staff across all projects and service towers.
• Allocate and rebalance staff across projects based on portfolio priorities, workload, and skill requirements.
• Mentor and develop Project Managers; conduct performance management and succession planning for key personnel.
• Ensure project leads and key personnel hold required certifications and meet minimum experience qualifications.
• Manage subcontractor relationships, teaming partner performance, and flow-down of contractual requirements across the portfolio.
• Maintain full compliance with U.S. citizenship and security clearance requirements for sensitive positions.

Technology & Transformation

• Provide strategic oversight across a complex, multi-platform enterprise environment, ensuring architectural and technical alignment across projects.
• Drive technology refresh initiatives, annual capacity planning, and quarterly evaluations to keep customer infrastructure current and mission-ready.
• Support the customer's cloud adoption roadmap (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and ensure contractor operations integrate seamlessly with cloud platforms.
• Champion automation, continual service improvement (CSI), and self-service capability development (e.g., knowledge base expansion, ITSM workflow automation) across the portfolio.
• Identify opportunities to share innovations, lessons learned, and best practices among projects.

Risk, Compliance & Security

• Maintain a portfolio-level risk and issue register; identify, assess, and mitigate risks across operational, financial, technical, schedule, and personnel dimensions, including risks that span multiple projects.
• Ensure compliance with federal IT security requirements, access control policies, and credential vault standards across all projects.
• Oversee security incident reporting obligations.
• Maintain strict data handling protocols for sensitive and classified operations.

Reporting, Deliverables & Configuration Management

• Oversee timely, high-quality delivery of all contractual deliverables across the portfolio, including capacity plans, patch reports, monitoring dashboards, incident summaries, monthly trend reports, and ad-hoc queries.
• Produce consolidated portfolio status reports that summarize performance, risks, financials, and upcoming milestones for customer and Peraton leadership.
• Maintain portfolio and project documentation, configuration baselines, and transition artifacts in accordance with customer standards.

Basic Qualifications:

• 16 years of experience, may have management experience
• Must be a US Citizen with the ability to obtain and maintain a Department of Energy (DOE) security clearance
• Minimum 12 years of progressive IT experience, including at least 7 years in program/project management roles on federal government IT contracts, of which at least 3 years were spent overseeing multiple concurrent IT projects or a program portfolio.
• Demonstrated experience overseeing multiple concurrent IT projects or programs for a single customer, including prioritization, resource allocation, and cross-project dependency management.
• Experience leading a portfolio or program with a combined workforce of 100+ personnel, including managing Project Managers as direct reports.
• Classified IT operations experience (primary) and cyber operations experience (secondary) supporting national security missions.
• Demonstrated experience managing large federal IT operations in a classified environment.
• Proven track record managing portfolio or program financials, including contractor-borne cost responsibilities and subcontractor management.
• Direct experience managing relationships with U.S. government agencies at the senior executive level.
• Demonstrated experience delivering against complex, contractually defined SLA frameworks with priority-tiered incident management.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Active Top Secret clearance
• Department of Energy (DOE) and/or National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) experience.
• PMI Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP) or Program Management Professional (PgMP) certification.
• ITIL v4/5 Foundation certification or higher, with working knowledge of ITIL service management disciplines across incident, problem, change, and configuration management.
• Experience with portfolio management tools and practices and hybrid/Agile delivery approaches.
• Experience leading transitions of multiple projects or service towers into a consolidated portfolio.

$176,000 - $282,000. This represents the typical salary range for this position. Salary is determined by various factors, including but not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the position, the individual’s experience, education, knowledge, skills, and competencies, as well as geographic location and business and contract considerations. Depending on the position, employees may be eligible for overtime, shift differential, and a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay.

Peraton offers eligible employees a variety of benefits including medical, dental, vision, life, health savings account, short/long term disability, EAP, parental leave, 401(k), paid time off (PTO) for vacation, and company paid holidays. A full listing of available benefits can be viewed at https://www.careers.peraton.com/benefits.

EEO: Equal opportunity employer, including disability and protected veterans, or other characteristics protected by law.