Operations Key Account Manager

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

6d•$97,600 - $206,400

About The Position

The Operations Key Account Manager independently leads complex, cross-functional partner enablement programs that connect Microsoft strategy with partner execution. The role develops a deep understanding of partner business models, capabilities, dependencies, and operational experiences; translates partner insight into recommendations and actionable business requirements; identifies and communicates risks; and drives readiness and adoption for priority launches and changes. As a trusted advisor and Voice of Partner, the role creates clarity in ambiguous situations, influences without direct authority, and delivers measurable outcomes that reduce friction, strengthen trust, and improve the ease of doing business with Microsoft. The role operates independently on programs with broad cross-functional dependencies and material partner or business impact. It moves from analysis to recommendations and action plans, aligns stakeholders on outcomes and accountability, anticipates and resolves risks, and communicates decision-ready updates to leadership and other audiences. It develops reusable approaches, operating rhythms, standards, and scalable solutions. The role leads partner-facing change management from impact assessment through sustained adoption, while product, policy, platform, and technical delivery remain with their originating teams. It also facilitates structured co-design among partners and internal teams to test assumptions, shape requirements, validate feasibility, and resolve readiness risks before launch commitments are finalized. Microsoft describes its mission as empowering every person and organization to achieve more, and emphasizes growth mindset, innovation, collaboration, respect, integrity, accountability, and inclusion.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Business, Operations, Finance, or a related field and 4+ years of experience in program management, process management, or process improvement, or equivalent experience.
Ability to lead complex cross-functional programs independently and make progress when direction or information is incomplete.
Ability to influence without formal authority and align stakeholders on outcomes, ownership, decisions, and timelines.
Ability to anticipate risks and dependencies, escalate with context and options, and drive issues to resolution.
Ability to communicate concise, decision-ready updates and adapt detail for partner, technical, operational, and executive audiences.
Ability to translate partner insight and complex business, technical, operational, and policy changes into requirements, recommendations, plans, and partner actions.
Strong project and change-management capability, including impact assessment, stakeholder and resistance planning, readiness criteria, adoption measurement, conflict resolution, trade-off negotiation, and practical solution development.
Strong analytical capability using data, reporting, dashboards, KPIs, and qualitative insights to influence decisions and monitor outcomes.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including explaining complex subjects to global audiences and engaging across levels and cultures.
Demonstrated impact and influence skills, including cross-boundary collaboration and relationship building with internal and external stakeholders.
Ability to identify systemic issues and apply continuous improvement to improve operational outcomes.
Independent, flexible, and proactive approach, including identifying strategic opportunities, developing proposals, and gaining stakeholder alignment.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor's degree in Business, Operations, Finance, Supply Chain, Technology, Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field and 8+ years of relevant experience, or equivalent experience.
Experience working in global, cross-functional, and highly matrixed environments.
Proven record of delivering complex programs, launches, operational changes, or improvement initiatives with competing priorities.
Experience in partner channel management, partner operations, customer relationship management, customer success, or strategic account engagement.
Experience identifying systemic issues and applying industry practices, standardization, automation, AI, continuous improvement, or self-service solutions to improve scale and sustainability.
Understanding of cloud, commerce, digital platforms, partner ecosystems, security, compliance, or lifecycle operations.

Responsibilities

Drive partner enablement across end-to-end partner lifecycle processes to reduce friction and improve the ease of doing business with Microsoft.
Build trusted partner relationships and structured engagement rhythms to surface priorities, operational pain points, requirements, risks, and emerging needs.
Develop an understanding of partner business models, capabilities, dependencies, and change impacts.
Translate Microsoft business, product, engineering, policy, security, compliance, and platform changes into clear partner actions and operational implications.
Represent the Voice of Partner across Microsoft and use partner evidence and subject-matter expertise to influence requirements, design, prioritization, roadmaps, and launch decisions.
Assess and prioritize partner requirements, translating requests into actionable business requirements, recommendations, or experience improvements.
Communicate partner risks and concerns, their business and operational impacts, required ownership, and mitigation or risk-acceptance decisions.
Identify systemic patterns and opportunities from individual partner experiences and close the feedback loop with partners and internal stakeholders.
Plan and facilitate co-design engagements with representative partners and engineering teams for qualifying changes.
Set co-design objectives, partner scenarios, decision questions, constraints, and expected outputs.
Translate partner workflows, technical dependencies, implementation effort, and operational constraints into prioritized requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, or design recommendations.
Work with engineering and product owners to identify what can be influenced, what is fixed, and what requires a trade-off, exception, or risk-acceptance decision.
Coordinate previews, pilots, sandbox or test-environment validation, and implementation walkthroughs to confirm guidance, tooling, APIs, support paths, and operational processes are usable before broad release.
Document co-design decisions, owners, unresolved issues, and feedback disposition, and explain outcomes to participating partners.
Own partner change-management and readiness plans for priority launches and key change moments, including narratives, impacted segments, partner actions, deliverables, milestones, dependencies, success measures, risks, communications inputs, and stakeholder updates.
Assess change impact and cumulative change burden across partner business models, geographies, roles, technical architectures, operational processes, and overlapping timelines; identify necessary changes to sequencing, scope, or support.
Define evidence-based readiness criteria and use status signals to inform launch, mitigation, escalation, and exception decisions.
Escalate blockers early with business impact, accountable ownership, and resolution needs, and drive mitigation before critical milestones and go-live.
Track implementation and adoption through and after go-live, verify partner actions and intended outcomes, and transition unresolved issues or sustained support needs to accountable owners.
Use preparedness, adoption, operational, business, and qualitative data to identify trends, risks, opportunities, and systemic gaps.
Define measurable success criteria and deliver concise, decision-ready executive narratives with assessments, recommendations, trade-offs, and required actions.
Standardize services, simplify processes, reduce manual work, and advance automation, AI-enabled insights, and self-service enablement models.
Balance high-touch partner engagement with scalable and preventative solutions for recurring ecosystem friction.
Collaborate across engineering, business planning, product and launch, sales, operations, support, compliance, and enablement teams.
Clarify accountability, decisions, and next steps; convene and align stakeholders to solve ambiguous cross-organizational problems.
Influence without direct authority using partner evidence, judgment, business impact, and data, and recommend a path forward when information is incomplete.
Demonstrate thought leadership, strategic thinking, adaptability, and proactive identification of opportunities for business impact.
Embody Microsoft culture and values.