Principal Technical Program Manager

Microsoft • Redmond, WA

1d

About The Position

The Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) for Microsoft is chartered with understanding, shaping, and accelerating technologies and their impact on Microsoft, industry, and society in order to empower every person and every organization to achieve more. Whether it’s providing technical insights company‑wide or giving meaning to an “AI First” company, OCTO leads investments in cutting‑edge innovation and works across the company with engineering, field, and strategy teams. We are seeking a Principal Technical Program Manager to lead and scale Microsoft’s Responsible AI (RAI) efforts across our engineering systems and platform services. In this role, you will partner closely with senior technical and policy leaders across Security, Safety Services, the Office of Responsible AI, product teams, Red Teaming, and Evaluation/Measurement Services to drive unified, durable approaches that influence strategy across Microsoft. The role is highly visible, with regular touchpoints with the Office of the CTO and the RAI executive leadership team. You will help Microsoft navigate fast‑moving regulatory, safety, and policy expectations while enabling teams to innovate responsibly. This includes defining long‑range architectural direction for safety technologies, influencing compliance frameworks, and ensuring that our AI products meet the highest standards for quality and responsibility. As Artificial Intelligence (AI) advances at unprecedented speed, you will play a pivotal role in helping Microsoft anticipate emerging risks and requirements, strengthen durable RAI practices, and identify opportunities to accelerate responsible innovation. The work requires technical depth, the ability to interpret policy, and a clear understanding of the business and technology landscape. You’ll partner across engineering, research, product, and policy organizations to simplify complex requirements, establish company‑wide strategy, and drive execution in a rapidly changing environment. We’re seeking someone who can translate RAI principles into practical, scalable processes, tools, and systems. The ideal candidate has experience owning strategic direction, leading technical implementations, and advancing cross‑company capabilities. Demonstrated Technical Program Management skills—spanning planning, prioritization, architecture, analysis, and prototyping—are critical to connecting the dots across teams and accelerating responsible innovation at scale. At Microsoft, our mission—to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more—guides how we partner with customers to deliver trusted, impactful solutions. With a growth mindset culture, we innovate responsibly and measure success by shared progress—people, teams, and customers. Join us to do meaningful work that changes the world and helps shape what’s next for everyone.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree AND 6+ years experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development OR equivalent experience.
• 3+ years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.
• 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 12+ years experience engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development OR equivalent experience.
• 8+ years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.
• 1+ year(s) of experience reading and/or writing code (e.g., sample documentation, product demos).
• Engineering background.
• Experience managing virtual or cross collaboration technical teams and projects; coaching, mentoring, caring and contributing to a fast-paced, results-oriented working groups.
• Demonstrated skill in cultivating effective relationships, influencing with empathy, and working collaboratively across internal and external teams.
• Ability to identify business and technical RAI needs, and determine solutions that will create more automated, self-serve Responsible AI engineering/product making systems with ability to manage a very quickly changing space and bring people along the journey.
• Ability to architect systems and user flows to create a technical solution, prototype if needed, test models or systems and work with teams in the company to drive solutions to be built. Sometimes this will be identifying partnerships, startups, or acquisitions that help us jumpstart this work faster than building internally.
• Ability to understand the parts of a wide portfolio of businesses and their interrelationships. This includes skill in understanding the industry, competition, and expected future developments and challenges, the business's competitive strengths and weaknesses, opportunities to grow the business and reduce complexity, and awareness of the environment for opportunities.
• Proven capability to engage senior leaders, manage complex relationships, and coordinate efforts across teams and partner organizations.
• Product leadership abilities with demonstrated strategic thinking and vision; Proven track record of delivering large scale enterprise solutions and services with huge business impact and customer first mindset.
• Thrives in ambiguity, agile in navigating situations, and can create a vision with a bias for action and drive for results.
• Demonstrated capability in verbal and written communications skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead Microsoft-wide RAI initiatives that establish durable safety, compliance, and governance practices across engineering, product, and research organizations.
• Define long‑range technical strategy and architectural direction for RAI platforms, tools, and processes, partnering with architects, safety experts, and product leadership.
• Influence senior stakeholders across multiple organizations to align on safety requirements, evaluation frameworks, and regulatory readiness.
• Translate complex and emerging safety, regulatory, and policy requirements into scalable technical guidance, decision frameworks, and prioritized engineering workstreams.
• Shape and steward architectural decisions for safety review pipelines, evaluation and measurement systems, and other core RAI capabilities.
• Navigate ambiguous problem spaces, drive clarity, and guide leaders through risk tradeoffs and decision‑making.
• Represent OCTO across Microsoft and externally, helping articulate Microsoft’s RAI strategy and influencing industry direction.
• Drive execution at scale across diverse engineering teams, anticipating blockers and shaping cross‑functional solutions.
• Mentor and elevate Technical Program Manager peers, strengthening technical excellence and fostering a culture of responsible innovation that reflects our Culture and Values.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees