Principal Technical Program Manager

Microsoft • Redmond, WA

7d • Hybrid

About The Position

Microsoft Cloud Operations and Innovation’s Integrated Planning & Execution Datacenter Infrastructure team is responsible for global planning to maximize capacity efficiency while optimizing safety, security, and availability across Microsoft’s datacenter portfolio. The Principal Technical Program Manager for Region Health shapes the health and growth strategy for Microsoft cloud regions across the Americas. This senior individual-contributor role has portfolio-wide impact, shaping strategy, influencing executive decisions, and leading complex programs. It translates technical, customer, and business signals into portfolio priorities and decision-ready recommendations, while identifying regional constraints and opportunities to make better use of capacity. The role leads through ambiguity and influences engineering, infrastructure, planning, finance, and commercial teams to clarify trade-offs and deliver outcomes. Insights from individual regions are developed into repeatable approaches that strengthen Region Health across the broader portfolio. The role owns integrated program outcomes through influence; partner teams retain their engineering, operational, and investment responsibilities.

The role is located in one or more of Microsoft’s hub locations: Atlanta, Georgia; Redmond, Washington; or Washington, DC. It is eligible for hybrid or remote work, up to 100%. Relocation support is provided. Successful candidates living within 50 miles of Microsoft’s Redmond campus must work from the office at least three days per week.

The position leads region-health strategy and multi-year infrastructure optimization programs, including assessing supply, demand, service readiness, workload-ready capacity, availability-zone balance, service gaps, SLAs, and adoption. It turns regional assessments, risks, and opportunities into portfolio priorities and recommendations, then establishes cross-team plans, ownership, milestones, and measurable outcomes. The role also establishes technical program plans and governance, manages risks and dependencies, drives operational readiness, and improves program practices. Responsibilities include implementing responsible AI practices in AI/ML systems, analyzing distributed system and platform dependencies, and piloting approaches that can scale across the portfolio.

The position requires a bachelor’s degree and at least six years of relevant experience, or equivalent experience, as well as at least three years managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects. Preferred qualifications include a bachelor’s degree and 12 or more years of relevant experience, or equivalent experience; eight or more years managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects; and one or more years reading and/or writing code. Candidates must be able to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements, including the Microsoft Cloud Background Check at hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree and at least 6 years of experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development, or equivalent experience.
• At least 3 years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.
• Ability to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements, including the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor’s degree and at least 12 years of experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development, or equivalent experience.
• At least 8 years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.
• At least 1 year of experience reading and/or writing code, such as sample documentation or product demos.
• Proven experience leading complex, cross-team technical programs with significant infrastructure or platform components.
• Strong technical foundation in cloud infrastructure and distributed systems, or platforms and large-scale compute environments.
• Demonstrated ability to manage execution in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience presenting to senior leadership.
• Deep program-management expertise in converting data into insights, actions, and impact.
• Change-management and stakeholder-management experience.
• Experience delivering programs that scale beyond a pilot.
• Familiarity with datacenter operations, hardware lifecycle management, or global deployment programs.
• Experience driving cycle-time reduction or large-scale process transformation.
• Background working with hyperscale cloud platforms or enterprise services.

Responsibilities

• Shape the Americas region-health strategy, determining where regions can support growth, where intervention is needed, and how groups of regions can provide scale to customers.
• Turn regional assessments into clear portfolio priorities and convert risks and opportunities into decisions.
• Evaluate supply, demand, and service readiness across near- and long-term horizons; recommend when to accelerate capacity, redirect growth, close service gaps, or change regional plans, with clear customer, financial, and technical trade-offs.
• Build cross-team action plans with accountable owners, milestones, and measurable outcomes; secure leadership alignment, resolve dependencies, and verify that actions improve customers’ ability to deploy and grow.
• Evolve the definition of regional health beyond installed capacity and utilization by assessing workload-ready capacity, availability-zone balance, service gaps, SLAs, and adoption against business expectations.
• Address gaps, scenarios, and under-utilization; turn recurring blockers into lasting fixes and strengthen the data, decision-making, and program practices used across teams.
• Mentor TPMs to extend effective program practices across regions.
• Define end-to-end technical program plans using structured delivery frameworks, including Agile and Waterfall, with scope, milestones, dependencies, and execution timelines.
• Execute a comprehensive multi-year program strategy to optimize infrastructure utilization across Microsoft’s global datacenters.
• Collaborate with senior leadership to align program goals with organizational objectives and business priorities.
• Lead cross-functional teams, including engineering, operations, and finance, to achieve program outcomes.
• Implement responsible AI practices in AI/ML systems, including model-risk assessment, bias evaluation, data-governance controls, and compliance with internal and regulatory AI policies.
• Analyze dependencies across distributed services, APIs, and infrastructure components to identify technical risks and execution constraints.
• Manage technical risks, issues, and decisions using formal TPM frameworks and escalation models.
• Define technical requirements, success criteria, and acceptance metrics, including scalability, availability, performance, and security targets.
• Define production-release operational-readiness criteria using go-live checklists, failure-mode analysis, and post-deployment validation metrics.
• Monitor project progress, identify risks, and implement mitigation strategies to support timely, successful delivery.
• Coordinate internal and external stakeholders to ensure seamless execution of program activities.
• Drive execution across distributed engineering teams by tracking delivery metrics such as schedule variance, milestone burndown, throughput, and defect leakage.
• Implement governance and change-control mechanisms using impact analysis, dependency validation, and formal change-approval processes.
• Identify and implement best practices, innovative solutions, and process enhancements to promote continuous improvement.
• Stay current with industry trends, emerging technologies, and regulatory requirements related to datacenter infrastructure and delivery.
• Lead efforts to pilot and evaluate new technologies and methodologies to enhance program outcomes.

Benefits

• Relocation support is provided.
• Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation; details are available through Microsoft’s corporate pay information.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal