Senior Easements Program Manager

Microsoft • Washington, DC

6d

About The Position

Cloud Operations and Innovation (CO+I) delivers the global datacenter infrastructure capacity that powers Microsoft’s cloud platform. Within CO+I, the Land Development team enables cloud growth by delivering and pre-positioning real estate, land rights, and infrastructure access required to support datacenter development at scale.
Easements to support the delivery of datacenter capacity are increasingly prevalent and complex. The Senior Easements Program Manager leads end-to-end execution of easements and related real estate instruments (power, water, fiber, access, and other critical infrastructure) to keep development and build milestones on track across a fast-moving, multi-stakeholder portfolio.
This role partners closely with Land Development Managers, Acquisition Managers, Engineering & Design, Utilities, Fiber, Construction, and Legal, as well as external parties (utilities, landowners, public agencies, and consultants). The ideal candidate brings strong program and transaction leadership, a bias for action, and a passion for building scalable, repeatable processes that improve speed, quality, and risk management.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Business Management, Real Estate, Project Management, or related field AND 5+ years of experience in infrastructure real estate delivery, right-of-way, and/or easement acquisition and negotiation across multiple utility/infrastructure types OR relevant experience OR 7+ years equivalent experience.
• Background Check Requirements:
• 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.
• Citizenship & Citizenship Verification: This position requires verification of U.S. citizenship due to citizenship-based legal restrictions. Specifically, this position supports United States federal, state, and/or local United States government agency customer and is subject to certain citizenship-based restrictions where required or permitted by applicable law. To meet this legal requirement, citizenship will be verified via a valid passport, or other approved documents, or verified US government Clearance.

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor's Degree in Business Management, Real Estate, Project Management, or related field AND 7+ years of experience in infrastructure real estate delivery, right-of-way, and/or easement acquisition and negotiation across multiple utility/infrastructure types OR 10+ years equivalent experience.
• Direct datacenter development, utility delivery, or large-scale linear infrastructure experience.
• Experience working in a large, matrixed organization and/or across multiple geographies.
• Familiarity with route engineering constraints for fiber, water, and power projects.
• Experience with project scheduling tools (e.g., Microsoft Project) and process automation/standardization.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple concurrent transactions and stakeholders, prioritize effectively, and deliver results under time pressure.
• Negotiation, written and verbal communication, and executive-ready stakeholder management skills.
• Proficiency with Microsoft tools (Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, SharePoint) and comfort tracking workflows and reporting milestones.

Responsibilities

• Drive cross-team delivery of power, water, fiber, access, and other easements required for datacenter development and infrastructure delivery.
• Lead negotiations and commercial terms with landowners, utilities, public agencies, and other counterparties to secure timely execution.
• Project-manage external land/ROW suppliers and consultants; set scope, priorities, timelines, and quality expectations, and remove blockers.
• Partner with internal and external legal counsel to streamline drafting, review, approvals, and signature workflows to meet critical deadlines.
• De-risk easement delivery by engaging early in site diligence (e.g., title/ALTA review inputs, constraints identification, and market/authority research) and coordinating mitigation plans.
• Own stakeholder communication and reporting: track milestones, risks, dependencies, and decisions; provide clear, executive-ready updates.
• Drive standardization and continuous improvement: create repeatable playbooks, templates, and automation/controls to improve predictability and reduce cycle time.

What This Job Offers

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