IT Operations Principal (M365 Engineer)

Cornerstone Building Brands•Cary, NC

2d•Remote

About The Position

This role is focused on automating manual tasks within the Microsoft 365 platform, including Exchange, Entra ID, Teams, and Microsoft 365 Copilot. The goal is to reduce the need for human intervention through automation, improved defaults, and self-service options. The position involves collaborating with various business units like security, compliance, and the service desk to enhance organizational efficiency and preparedness. Success is measured by the business value delivered, such as time saved for colleagues, reduced risk, and avoided costs, all while maintaining a strong service mindset.

Requirements

Approximately 3-5 years of experience administering a production M365 tenant, including Exchange Online and Entra ID.
Proficiency in scripting, with PowerShell as a primary tool and experience using Microsoft Graph.
Ability to debug issues to root cause, including authentication failures, mail delivery problems, and sync errors, and document findings.
Curiosity and experience with Copilot, whether through admin work, building agents, or self-directed learning.
Strong written communication skills for clear documentation and explanations to non-technical colleagues.
Ability to work effectively with others, including cross-functional IT teams and business units.
Comfort with asynchronous communication and remaining calm during critical incidents.
A service-oriented approach, treating colleagues as customers and prioritizing follow-through.
Ability to connect work to business outcomes, explaining project value in business terms and prioritizing accordingly.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience with Copilot Studio, declarative agents, or Graph connectors.
Infrastructure-as-code experience (Bicep, Terraform, Azure Automation) or CI/CD applied to tenant configuration.
Experience with Defender for Office 365 or Defender for Identity.
Hybrid Exchange or migration experience, including tenant-to-tenant moves.
Certifications such as MS-102, SC-300, or AZ-104.
Experience in a regulated environment with formal audit requirements.

Responsibilities

Automate repetitive tasks and recurring tickets using tools like Power Automate, PowerShell, Microsoft Graph, and Logic Apps.
Build self-service solutions for common requests such as access requests, group management, and IT fixes.
Measure and report on the reduction of manual work and tickets.
Prepare the M365 tenant for Copilot by managing permissions, remediating oversharing, and implementing sensitivity labeling in collaboration with security and compliance teams.
Implement configuration as code for tenant changes, ensuring changes are version-controlled and peer-reviewed.
Safely ship changes through testing, deliberate rollouts, and rollback capabilities, applying engineering practices to change management.
Maintain documentation, runbooks, and roadmaps.
Perform hands-on operations for Exchange Online and Entra ID, including mail flow, connectors, transport rules, email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), Conditional Access, MFA, passwordless rollouts, SSO integrations, directory sync, and privileged access.
Provide Tier-3 escalation for M365 issues, conducting root cause analysis for permanent fixes.
Participate in a shared on-call rotation and occasional maintenance windows.