Principal Technical Program Manager

Overview

Microsoft Cloud Operations and Innovation (CO+I) is the team behind the cloud.  Within CO+I, the Integrated Planning & Execution (IPE) - Datacenter Infrastructure team responsible for global planning to maximize efficiency of our capacity while optimizing safety, security, and availability across our global datacenter portfolio.

As Principal Technical Program Manager for Region Health, you will shape the health and growth strategy for Microsoft's cloud regions across the Americas. You will anticipate emerging constraints, identify opportunities to unlock greater value from capacity, and translate complex technical, customer, and business signals into portfolio priorities and decision-ready recommendations.

You will lead through ambiguity and influence across engineering, infrastructure, planning, finance, and commercial teams to shape strategy, clarify trade-offs, and drive decisions and outcomes. You will also turn insights from individual regions into scalable approaches that strengthen Region Health across the broader portfolio.

You will frame complex region-health challenges, establish the cross-functional strategy to address them, and drive decisions and outcomes across engineering, infrastructure, planning, finance, and commercial teams.

This is a senior individual-contributor role with portfolio-wide impact. You will shape strategy, influence executive decisions, and lead complex programs. Measurable results come from resolving regional and geographic challenges, and through influencing investment decisions. In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

This role is located either in one or all hub locations - Atlanta, GA, Redmond, WA, Washington DC

This role is eligible for hybrid or remote work, up to 100%. Relocation support will be provided, and successful candidates who live within 50 miles of Microsofts Redmond campus will be required to work from the office a minimum of 3 days per week.

Responsibilities

Region Health Program:

• Shape the Americas region health strategy. Define where regions can support growth, where intervention is needed, and how groups of regions provide scale to customers. Turn regional assessments into clear portfolio priorities.
• Turn risk and opportunity into decisions. Evaluate supply, demand, and service readiness across near- and long-term horizons. Recommend when to accelerate capacity, redirect growth, close service gaps or change regional plans-with clear customer, financial and technical trade-offs.
• Drive actions, track results. Build cross-team action plans with accountable owners, milestones and measurable outcomes. Secure leadership alignment, resolve dependencies, and verify that actions improve customers' ability to deploy and grow.
• Evolve what "healthy" means. Look beyond installed capacity and utilization. Assess workload-ready capacity, availability-zone balance, service gaps, SLAs, and adoption against business expectations. Address gaps scenarios and under-utilization.
• Make improvements repeatable. Turn recurring blockers into lasting fixes. Strengthen the data, decision-making, and program practices teams use, and mentor TPMs to extend the impact across regions.

You will own integrated program outcomes through influence, while partner teams retain their engineering, operational, and investment responsibilities.

Program Leadership and Strategy:

• Defining end-to-end technical program plans using structured delivery frameworks including Agile and Waterfall, including scope, milestones, dependencies, and execution timelines.
• Execute a comprehensive multi-year program strategy to optimize infrastructure utilization across Microsofts global datacenters.
• Collaborate with senior leadership to align program goals with organizational objectives and business priorities.
• Lead cross-functional teams, including engineering, operations, and finance, to ensure program success.

Technical Expertise and Management:

• Implementing responsible AI practices in AI/ML systems, including model risk assessment, bias evaluation, data governance controls, and compliance with internal and regulatory AI policies.
• Analyzing complex system and platform dependencies across distributed services, APIs, and infrastructure components to identify technical risks and execution constraints.
• Managing technical risk, issue, and decision tracking using formal TPM frameworks and escalation models.
• Defining technical requirements, success criteria, and acceptance metrics using functional and non-functional requirement specifications, including scalability, availability, performance, and security targets.

Project Planning, Execution and Stakeholder Management:

• Defining operational readiness criteria for production releases using go-live checklists, failure-mode analysis, and post-deployment validation metrics.
• Monitor project progress, identify potential risks, and implement mitigation strategies to ensure timely and successful delivery.
• Coordinate with internal and external stakeholders to ensure seamless execution of program activities.
• Driving program execution across distributed engineering teams by tracking delivery metrics including schedule variance, milestone burndown, throughput, and defect leakage.
• Implementing governance and change-control mechanisms for technical programs using impact analysis, dependency validation, and formal change-approval processes.

Continuous Improvement and Innovation:

• Drive a culture of continuous improvement by identifying and implementing best practices, innovative solutions, and process enhancements.
• Stay current with industry trends, emerging technologies, and regulatory requirements related to datacenter infrastructure and delivery.
• Lead efforts to pilot and evaluate new technologies and methodologies to enhance program outcomes.

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications

Bachelors Degree AND 6+ years experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development OR equivalent experience.

3+ years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.

Background Check Requirements:

Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings:

• Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Additional or Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelors Degree AND 12+ years experience engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development OR equivalent experience.

• 8+ years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.

• 1+ year(s) of experience reading and/or writing code (e.g., sample documentation, product demos).

• Proven experience leading complex, cross‑team technical programs with significant infrastructure or platform components.

• Strong technical foundation in one or more of the following:

• Cloud infrastructure and distributed systems

• Platforms or large‑scale compute environments

• Demonstrated ability to manage execution in ambiguous, fast‑moving environments.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with experience presenting to senior leadership

• Deep Program Management expertise in converting data into insights into actions into impacts.

• Change Management and Stakeholder Management are important to the success of this role.

• Experience delivering programs that not only prove at pilot but also scale for impact.

• Familiarity with data center operations, hardware lifecycle management, or global deployment programs.

• Experience driving cycle‑time reduction or large‑scale process transformation.

• Background working with hyperscale cloud platforms or enterprise services.

#COICareers | #EPCCareers | #DCDCareers

Technical Program Management IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:

https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.