Principal Technical Program Manager

Microsoft • Redmond, WA

4d • $142,800 - $304,200 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Microsoft AI Monetization team shapes how Microsoft generates value from AI innovations across products including Copilot, Bing, Edge, and Microsoft Advertising. The Principal Technical Program Manager will lead Online Forensics Operations and drive complex programs involving traffic quality, fraud prevention, partner operations, technical investigations, compliance, and advertising ecosystem integrity.

The role owns execution across high-impact, often ambiguous operational programs. It brings together engineering, product, traffic quality, partner management, support, and business stakeholders to investigate emerging issues, coordinate remediation, manage critical escalations, and establish mechanisms that make Online Forensics operations more scalable, measurable, and effective. Success requires technical judgment, operational discipline, executive communication, and the ability to create clarity and drive action when ownership, signals, or solutions are unclear.

Starting January 26, 2026, Microsoft AI employees who live within a 50-mile commute of a designated Microsoft office in the U.S. or a 25-mile commute of a designated office in other countries are expected to work from the office at least four days per week, subject to local law and jurisdictional variation.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree and 6+ years of experience in engineering, product or technical program management, data analysis, or product development, or equivalent experience.
• 3+ years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor's degree and 12+ years of experience in engineering, product or technical program management, data analysis, or product development, or equivalent experience.
• Ability to drive high-ambiguity programs from problem definition through execution and measurable outcomes.
• Technical aptitude to engage engineers, understand system architecture and data flows, and reason about technical and operational dependencies.
• Analytical and problem-solving skills, particularly when signals are incomplete or conflicting.
• Ability to influence without authority and drive decisions across organizational boundaries.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills for engineering, business, partner, and executive audiences.
• 8+ years of experience leading complex, cross-functional programs in technology organizations.
• Experience with advertising platforms, online marketplaces, search, fraud prevention, abuse detection, traffic quality, trust and safety, cybersecurity, risk operations, or related domains.
• Experience managing operational investigations, high-severity escalations, or incident-style programs involving multiple technical and business stakeholders.
• Experience using telemetry, dashboards, and large datasets for investigations and operational decision-making.
• Experience reviewing technical designs, specifications, system diagrams, or data workflows.
• Experience driving automation or tooling improvements for operational teams.
• Experience working with audit, compliance, or evidence-management processes.

Responsibilities

• Lead cross-functional Online Forensics programs from problem identification and triage through investigation, mitigation, remediation, and operational follow-through.
• Establish ownership, milestones, decision points, dependencies, and success measures across programs involving engineering and business teams.
• Drive execution in ambiguous situations spanning technical systems, partner operations, traffic quality, fraud, and business processes.
• Build operating mechanisms that provide visibility into priorities, risks, decisions, and outcomes.
• Coordinate high-impact fraud investigations and remediation workflows, including High Impact Cases and fraud investigation packages supporting strategic partners.
• Coordinate investigation, remediation, credit, and sign-off processes, and work with engineering and product teams to address recurring patterns through improved prevention, detection, and remediation.
• Drive operational execution for invalid traffic suppression and enforcement programs using indicators such as IP, domain, and user agent; coordinate approvals and monitor program effectiveness and operational health.
• Coordinate publisher and advertiser traffic-quality escalations, assess and route issues, use dashboards for health checks, support initial analysis of significant supply-quality issues, and communicate investigation status, risks, decisions, and remediation.
• Manage operational engagement with strategic publisher partners, including recurring communications, investigation follow-ups, and issue resolution.
• Translate technical and forensic findings into actionable narratives and build partner-facing mechanisms that improve responsiveness, accountability, and transparency.
• Coordinate Online Forensics support for MRC, SOX, and SOC-1 audit and compliance activities; collect and organize evidence and summaries; and maintain audit-ready operational artifacts, meeting records, and production-change evidence.
• Lead operational execution of traffic-quality experiments and strategic pilots, defining objectives, execution plans, measurement approaches, and stakeholder responsibilities.
• Coordinate experiment and pilot analysis and reporting, and translate findings into recommendations for scaled operational or technical improvements.
• Translate complex technical and operational problems into structured execution plans and work with engineering, product, data science, and business stakeholders to understand dependencies and constraints.
• Review technical designs, specifications, workflows, and system diagrams; identify risks early; and drive mitigation across organizational boundaries.
• Use data and operational metrics to identify trends, prioritize investments, and evaluate program effectiveness.
• Identify repetitive workflows for simplification or automation and partner with engineering teams to improve tooling and workflow efficiency.
• Promote practical use of automation and productivity tools and turn recurring manual processes into scalable mechanisms.
• Provide concise, data-informed leadership updates on operational health, investigations, risks, dependencies, and trends.
• Communicate complex technical and forensic issues to technical, business, partner, and executive audiences; influence stakeholders, establish clarity, and drive decisions, ownership, and next actions.

Benefits

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

What This Job Offers

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