Principal Regional Critical Environment Program Manager

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

21h

About The Position

Microsoft’s Cloud Operations & Innovation (CO+I) delivers and manages the critical environment infrastructure and foundational technologies supporting Microsoft online services, including Bing, Office 365, Xbox, OneDrive, and Azure. The role provides regional program leadership for the Critical Environment (CE) discipline within Data Center Field Operations, driving consistent policy and standards application, best practices, and resolution of program gaps across data centers. The position oversees regional data center projects and programs, serving as a central intake and prioritization point for work affecting CE operations. It aligns project scope, resources, technical requirements, stakeholders, budgets, and governance, and drives cost- and energy-efficiency initiatives. It also provides technical oversight and recommendations on data center equipment designs, technologies, and construction methods; supports incident response and root cause analysis; monitors regional risk; and helps ensure compliance, training, emergency preparedness, and consistent procedures across sites. The role collaborates across regional and global teams, supports change management, maintains accountability for service quality and customer experience, and follows safety and security requirements. The successful candidate must meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements, including a Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.

Requirements

High school qualification or equivalent and 10+ years of experience supporting IT equipment or related technology, or delivering server and network deployment projects in large-scale environments; equivalent experience is accepted.
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.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s or technical college degree in Computer Science, Math, Telecommunications, Electrical or Mechanical Engineering, Supply Chain Management, or a related field, and 15+ years of experience in critical environment infrastructures or physical IT infrastructures; alternatively, high school qualification or equivalent and 17+ years of such experience, or equivalent experience.
Experience with critical environment infrastructure such as UPS, generators, and AHUs, or physical IT infrastructure such as servers, SANs, networking, capacity, data center racks/enclosures, and structured cabling.
Applicable certifications such as Microsoft, network, or CCNA certifications, ITIL v3 Foundation, or Microsoft Operations Framework certifications.
Experience operating building cooling, electrical, mechanical, and life safety systems.
Experience with Electrical Power Monitoring Systems (EPMS), Branch Circuit Monitoring (BCM), and Building Automation Systems (BAS).

Responsibilities

Provide direction, guidance, and oversight for Critical Environment projects, programs, and initiatives within Data Center Field Operations.
Drive consistent regional application of data center Critical Environments policies and standards and adoption of best practices.
Own and drive resolution of identified gaps in Critical Environment programs.
Provide project and program management oversight for region-wide initiatives.
Serve as the primary contact for field CE teams to submit program feedback, process improvement ideas, documentation updates, and tooling improvements or additions.
Evaluate scope and resource capacity expectations, requests, and assumptions for CE-related work.
Act as the central point of intake to track and prioritize projects affecting data center CE operations.
Provide governance, leadership, oversight, and management for regional programs and initiatives; maintain stakeholder and sponsor awareness.
Align appropriate resources and technical requirements to projects, ensure work remains within scope, and adhere to budget requirements.
Drive cost- and energy-efficiency projects.
Recommend new data center equipment designs, technologies, and construction methods.
Lead, coach, and mentor data center CE management teams conducting root cause analyses of incidents and outages; ensure leadership-ready presentations, complete analysis, and lessons learned are shared across sites.
Provide on-site support to CE personnel during incidents and critical work periods as needed.
Monitor campus and metro risk profiles, advise on action plans to reduce risk, and report and trend progress.
Ensure sites comply with Microsoft policies, standards, Technical Service Bulletins, and guidelines.
Help establish new data center metro areas by training and onboarding CE personnel.
Consult on CE policies, standards, guidelines, and procedures to keep them current with industry best practices, requirements, and learnings and applicable to field operations.
Ensure CE teams and personnel are trained in emergency response best practices and can respond adequately to primary Emergency Operating Procedure scenarios.
Standardize procedures across the area of influence and drive alignment with regional and global teams.
Share relevant information proactively, seek clarification when needed, and lead course corrections in response to changing plans, goals, actions, or priorities.
Collaborate and negotiate with partner teams, support change management, and help deliver results through effective delegation.
Remain accountable for end-to-end service quality, completeness, and customer experience; identify and resolve or escalate quality issues.
Follow safety and security policies and procedures and promptly report safety or security concerns.
Translate leaders’ strategic vision and information into potential operational and efficiency improvements.
Embody Microsoft culture and values.