Principal Group Product Management, Manager

Microsoft

About The Position

The Azure Open Source Incubations team, part of the Azure Office of the CTO, explores and develops the next generation of cloud‑native and developer technologies. We identify high‑potential ideas, incubate them in close collaboration with open‑source communities, and graduate the most successful innovations into Microsoft engineering teams. Our work spans cloud‑native systems, distributed computing, developer platforms, and emerging edge scenarios. Innovation requires curiosity, resilience, and a willingness to learn through experimentation. We maintain a psychologically safe environment where product managers can explore bold ideas, test hypotheses rapidly, and pivot quickly when customer signals indicate we should. When an incubation shows meaningful traction, we invest deeply to shape it into a product capable of delivering long‑term value for developers and for Azure. Our aspiration is to be helpful, humble, and hands‑on in every stage of this journey. If you’re excited about open‑source innovation, developer experience, and building early‑stage technologies that can meaningfully shift Azure’s future, this is an exceptional opportunity. As the Principal Group Product Management, Manager, you will lead the product management organization driving Azure’s next generation of open‑source incubations. You will set the strategic agenda, ensure teams deeply understand developer needs, guide early‑stage feature bets through rapid experimentation, and determine which incubations should graduate into engineering or be respectfully retired. This role will allow you to expand your strategic leadership skills, build deep insight into cloud‑native developer ecosystems, and help shape high‑impact technologies from their earliest moments. Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees, we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree AND 10+ years experience in product/service/program management or software development OR equivalent experience.
3+ years people management experience.
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.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor's Degree AND 15+ years experience in product/service/program management or software development OR equivalent experience.
5+ years people management experience.
6+ years experience taking a product, feature, or experience to market (e.g., design, addressing product market fit, and launch, internal tool/framework).
8+ years experience improving product metrics for a product, feature, or experience in a market (e.g., growing customer base, expanding customer usage, avoiding customer churn).
8+ years experience disrupting a market for a product, feature, or experience (e.g.,. competitive disruption, taking the place of an established competing product).
5+ years experience working on in cloud‑native technologies, distributed systems, or developer platforms.
5+ years working on open source projects
2+ years experience ensuring teams integrate AI informed analysis into strategic planning.

Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership
Set the strategic direction for the incubation portfolio by helping teams identify and prioritize unmet developer needs, emerging industry opportunities, and cloud‑native trends.
Guide product managers in synthesizing customer and market signals—telemetry, qualitative research, open‑source community input, and competitive analysis—to shape problem definitions and determine the most impactful opportunities to pursue.
Establish clear success criteria, investment theses, and hypotheses for early‑stage incubations.
Execution & Cross‑Functional Alignment
Lead monthly executive reviews with the Azure CTO, ensuring decision‑makers have clarity on incubation health, customer traction, progress, and risks.
Build strong alignment with engineering, design, research, field, and open‑source program management partners to ensure incubations progress effectively toward production readiness.
Oversee customer engagements, including proofs‑of‑concept and early production use, ensuring customer insights drive prioritization and iteration.
Open Source & Community Leadership
Cultivate strong, trust‑based relationships with open‑source communities, contributors, maintainers, and foundation partners.
Represent Microsoft as a collaborative, respectful member of the open‑source ecosystem, ensuring our work aligns with community expectations and industry best practices.
Support the team in contributing to community design discussions, proposals, architecture reviews, and roadmap planning.
People Leadership (Model, Coach, Care)
Model: Demonstrate Microsoft’s leadership principles, fostering clarity, trust, inclusion, and resilient innovation in ambiguous problem spaces.
Coach: Develop product managers’ strategic judgment, customer insight skills, and ability to drive deeply technical early‑stage work across organizational boundaries.
Care: Invest in team well‑being, talent growth, and career development; attract and retain exceptional product management talent with diverse backgrounds.
Technical & Analytical Leadership
Provide hands‑on technical guidance across developer tools, languages, frameworks, and cloud‑native systems to help teams make sound architectural and prioritization decisions.
Apply strong analytical and communication skills to drive clarity across teams and partners and ensure incubations progress from concept to scalable reality.