Principal Datacenter Operations Manager

Microsoft • Chicago, IL

1d • $140,200 - $312,000

About The Position

Microsoft Cloud Operations & Innovation (CO+I) powers Microsoft’s cloud services. Reporting directly to the Metro Leader, the Principal Datacenter Operations Manager ensures new and retrofitted datacenter infrastructure is ready for safe, reliable operations, orchestrates large-scale deployments, and translates metro-wide strategy into coordinated priorities, plans, and governance across campuses and functions. The role leads change management and oversees facilities management across the Chicago Metro.

The position spans design, construction, commissioning, operational readiness, turnover, stabilization, warranty, early-life performance, and modifications within live datacenter environments. It connects teams that design and deliver datacenters with the teams that operate them, providing a coordinated Operations voice across Critical Environments (CE), IT, and Logistics. It ensures safety, security, reliability, availability, quality, maintainability, and long-term operability are built into infrastructure from the start.

The role partners with the Metro Leader and functional leaders to align metro priorities, coordinate cross-campus planning, manage dependencies, and resolve ownership gaps while preserving each Director’s accountability for execution and operational outcomes. It establishes the organization’s strategy, governance, priorities, operating model, and culture; builds and develops a high-performing team; and oversees operational readiness and infrastructure integrity across new builds, upgrades, retrofits, and live-site modifications. The manager leads planning cadences, decision forums, and cross-functional alignment, including change-management governance and facilities-management oversight across the Chicago Metro.

Requirements

• High school qualification or equivalent and 10+ years of experience in mission-critical service management, such as providing IT services, manufacturing, warehouse, retail, military, or managing physical operations in IT and/or critical-environment infrastructure, or equivalent experience.
• 3+ years of people-management experience.
• Ability to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security-screening requirements, including passing the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.
• Demonstrated experience across multiple infrastructure lifecycle stages, including design, construction, commissioning, operational readiness, turnover, stabilization, warranty, or live-site operations.
• Demonstrated understanding of mission-critical infrastructure, operational risk, infrastructure delivery, safety, security, quality, cost, schedule, commissioning, and reliability.
• Ability to lead through influence and establish accountability across organizations and partners outside direct reporting relationships.
• Strong executive communication skills, including the ability to translate complex technical, operational, and business risks into clear recommendations and decisions.
• Ability to anticipate, assess, and mitigate infrastructure and operational risk and build trusted partnerships across engineering, construction, commissioning, Operations, and vendor organizations.
• Experience aligning strategy, priorities, and integrated plans across IT Operations, Critical Environments, IAM/Logistics, or comparable cross-functional organizations.
• Experience establishing and operating governance mechanisms, including escalation paths, decision forums, performance reviews, guardrails, and structured decision-making.
• Ability to lead cross-functional initiatives and influence senior leaders and Directors without direct authority while preserving clear functional accountability.
• Demonstrated systems and strategic thinking, governance discipline, cross-functional collaboration, and executive communication skills.

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor’s or Technical College Degree in Computer Science, Math, Telecommunications, Electrical/Mechanical Engineering, Supply Chain Management, or a related field and 15+ years of enterprise-level experience managing large-scale and complex projects/programs, critical-environment infrastructures, or physical IT infrastructures; alternatively, high school qualification or equivalent and 17+ years of such experience, or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of people-management experience.
• Applicable certifications such as APICS/Inventory Control, CompTIA, Microsoft, Network Certifications, CCNA, ITIL v3 Foundation, Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF), Leadership Development Certifications, PMP, or CDCMP.
• Extensive experience leading organizations or programs responsible for datacenter infrastructure, operational readiness, critical environments, infrastructure reliability, or large-scale mission-critical operations.
• Experience leading infrastructure programs across multiple sites, campuses, or a regional portfolio.
• Experience delivering retrofit, upgrade, and design-change programs in live mission-critical environments while protecting customer availability and operational continuity.
• Experience across the full infrastructure lifecycle, including design reviews, L1-L5 commissioning, turnover, stabilization, warranty, and operational lifecycle management.
• Working knowledge of Critical Environment infrastructure, including electrical, mechanical, controls, UPS, generators, switchgear, cooling systems, and BESS, plus familiarity with IT infrastructure, networking, structured cabling, and datacenter logistics.
• Relevant professional certifications or licenses such as PMP, CDCMP, CxA/ACG, LEED AP, OSHA 30, or applicable engineering or construction credentials.
• Experience with organizational design, capacity planning, Capacity Clusters, or multi-site and cross-Metro operating models in hyperscale or mission-critical environments.

Responsibilities

• Build, lead, coach, and develop the Operations integration function across strategic design and construction coordination, tactical construction site operations coordination, and turnover deliverables and post-operation coordination.
• Establish organizational strategy, priorities, governance, operating rhythm, performance expectations, resource allocation, and a long-term capability roadmap aligned with CO+I priorities.
• Develop technical and program-management talent, strengthening technical depth, leadership capability, succession readiness, and organizational resilience.
• Lead metro-wide capacity, workforce, and succession planning, allocating resources across campuses, sites, and programs according to business priority, infrastructure complexity, operational risk, portfolio demand, and long-term capability needs.
• Foster a culture centered on safety, security, quality, accountability, inclusion, partnership, operational excellence, continuous improvement, and One Microsoft principles.
• Represent the Operations integration function with Metro, regional, and broader CO+I leadership.
• Partner with the Metro Leader to set metro-wide strategy, priorities, guardrails, and decision rights, and translate that direction into aligned plans across Datacenter IT Operations, Critical Environments, and IAM/Logistics leadership.
• Coordinate a unified planning cadence across campuses and Capacity Clusters, tracking dependencies, risks, progress, and ownership gaps against metro priorities.
• Lead Operations integration across design, construction, commissioning, operational readiness, turnover, stabilization, warranty, and post-turnover lifecycle activities.
• Ensure CE, IT, Logistics, maintainability, reliability, safety, security, and operational requirements are incorporated into infrastructure designs and formal design reviews.
• Establish Operations engagement throughout construction and commissioning, including quality reviews, readiness assessments, L2-L5 commissioning participation, and resolution of operational concerns before turnover.
• Establish standardized operational-readiness governance aligned with site-transition milestones, acceptance criteria, and decision rights.
• Ensure infrastructure, documentation, procedures, spares, training, tooling, systems, and operational dependencies are ready before operational acceptance so Operations teams can assume ownership safely and effectively on Day 1.
• Support Go/No-Go and readiness decisions with clear, data-driven assessments of infrastructure and operational risk.
• Govern post-turnover stabilization, warranty, and defect resolution, monitoring early-life performance and driving corrective actions.
• Establish a proactive approach to identifying and mitigating infrastructure and operational risks before they affect safety, security, availability, readiness, cost, or schedule, or create long-term technical debt.
• Use reliability data, commissioning findings, defect trends, operational incidents, equipment performance, and field experience to identify systemic risks and recurring issues.
• Partner with engineering, construction, commissioning, Operations, OEMs, and vendors to drive corrective and preventive actions.
• Establish mechanisms for monitoring infrastructure integrity and early-life reliability across the Metro portfolio.
• Turn lessons learned into measurable improvements in future designs, standards, construction practices, commissioning, and operational-readiness processes.
• Provide governance across new datacenter delivery and a portfolio of Metro Operations construction projects, including retrofits, upgrades, corrective work, and design modifications within operating datacenters.
• Maintain portfolio oversight for approved projects ranging from approximately $250,000 to $100 million, with accountability for delivery strategy, prioritization, risk, financial performance, and operational outcomes.
• Govern construction and infrastructure work in live environments through change management, risk assessment, Method of Procedure and Emergency Operating Procedure review, commissioning, and outage planning to protect safety, customer availability, and operational continuity.
• Partner with Datacenter Engineering, Datacenter Delivery, Commissioning, and Operations to govern infrastructure changes and ensure assets are documented, commissioned, maintainable, and supportable by Operations.
• Drive scalable, cost-effective solutions while reducing rework, warranty exposure, duplicate effort, and avoidable operational cost.
• Serve as the senior Operations integration leader across CE, IT, Logistics, DCD, DCE, Commissioning, end-to-end organizations, Field Operations, contractors, OEMs, Metro Operations, and other partners.
• Establish a single Operations integration point for requirements across electrical, mechanical, controls, IT infrastructure, networking, structured cabling, logistics, spares, receiving, and asset management.
• Build partnerships and establish accountability, decision-making, communication, and escalation mechanisms across participating organizations.
• Ensure Operations teams have the knowledge, documentation, training, tools, systems access, and resources needed to operate new and modified infrastructure safely and effectively.
• Maintain continuity of operational knowledge and lessons learned across projects and sites.
• Align campuses and Capacity Clusters to metro priorities within agreed guardrails; in Tier 4 / X-Large metros, coordinate cross-Metro planning, alignment, and communications with the Metro GM and other Metro Leaders.
• Oversee facilities management across the Chicago Metro, aligning campus facilities plans, maintenance priorities, service standards, and issue resolution with metro-wide safety, reliability, availability, and cost objectives while preserving local and functional leaders’ accountability for execution.
• Provide metro-wide strategy, integration, and governance oversight without assuming local operational execution; preserve Campus Directors’ accountability for campus execution and initiatives and functional Directors’ accountability for their respective strategies, delivery, and operational outcomes.
• Establish consistent infrastructure-readiness governance with clear decision rights, escalation paths, response expectations, and accountability.
• Ensure appropriate Operations representation in design reviews, readiness, Go/No-Go, and infrastructure-governance forums, supported by centralized intake and issue management.
• Report portfolio health, readiness, schedule, financial performance, infrastructure risk, reliability, and key decisions to Metro and regional leadership.
• Translate complex technical and operational issues into decision-ready information for senior leadership and serve as the senior Operations escalation point for significant infrastructure-delivery and readiness risks.
• Maintain accountability for safety, security, quality, scope, schedule, financial performance, operational readiness, reliability, and risk across the integrated portfolio.
• Provide fiscal oversight for approved budgets and oversee vendor strategy, contracting, performance, and commercial accountability.
• Lead change management across the Chicago Metro, coordinating impact and risk assessments, stakeholder alignment, communications, readiness, and adoption for infrastructure, facilities, and operating-model changes.
• Maintain clear metro-wide escalation paths and decision forums, raise issues early, and enable timely decisions across CE, IT, and IAM/Logistics leadership.
• Keep the Metro aligned to the standardized organizational model and Organization Design Guardrails, preparing capacity and complexity evidence for leadership-layer changes or exceptions reviewed through the Two-Lens Framework and approved through LT governance.
• Serve as a trusted strategy and integration partner to the Metro Leader while functional Directors retain end-to-end accountability for operational execution and outcomes.
• Establish and monitor KPIs for infrastructure readiness, delivery quality, reliability, issue resolution, schedule performance, risk reduction, cost efficiency, and organizational effectiveness.
• Use performance insights and lessons learned to establish common standards, share best practices across campuses, identify systemic opportunities, and drive measurable improvements.
• Track indicators including readiness milestone completion, issue aging, commissioning and turnover defect trends, documentation quality, early-life operational issues, infrastructure availability, capacity acceptance, warranty trends, recurring failures, risk closure, rework and cost avoidance, and lessons-learned implementation.
• Develop a scalable, repeatable infrastructure-integrity and operational-readiness model that strengthens integration between datacenter delivery and Operations across CO+I.

Benefits

• Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation; additional benefits and pay information is available through Microsoft’s careers website.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Education Level: High school or GED