Senior Technical Program Manager
About The Position
The Office of the CTO (OCTO) is a small, high-leverage organization that tackles Microsoft’s complex technical challenges and opportunities across research, engineering, product, and business organizations. This Senior Technical Program Manager will co-lead Microsoft’s internal AI/ML Community and the Machine Learning, AI & Data Science Conference (MLADS), serving a global community of more than 25,000 employees. The programs connect practitioners across research, engineering, data science, applied science, and product organizations to share expertise, discover emerging technical work, and accelerate learning and collaboration. The role calls for technical depth in software engineering, data science, machine learning, applied science, or AI engineering, along with strong program leadership. The successful candidate will assess technical work and emerging AI approaches, help shape technical programming, and build programs and partnerships that bring valuable work to Microsoft’s technical community. They will work with researchers, engineers, technical leaders, and community partners, independently driving complex programs from idea through execution.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree and 4+ years of experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development, or equivalent experience.
- Hands-on experience in software engineering, machine learning, AI engineering, data science, applied science, or applied AI, with enough technical depth to engage credibly with researchers and engineers.
- Experience evaluating AI/ML technologies, research, technical proposals, or applied systems for technical quality, novelty, and practical relevance.
- Experience building, deploying, evaluating, or operating software, data, or AI/ML systems.
- Experience reading and/or writing code and familiarity with modern software engineering and AI/ML development practices.
- Proven experience leading complex technical programs involving multiple engineering, research, or product teams.
- Experience collaborating across research, engineering, applied science, data science, and product organizations.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to translate complex technical concepts for hands-on practitioners and senior technical leaders.
Nice To Haves
- Bachelor’s degree and 8+ years of experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development, or equivalent experience.
- 6+ years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.
- 2+ years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.
- 1+ year of experience reading and/or writing code, such as for sample documentation or product demos.
- Demonstrated thought leadership through engineering contributions, technical publications, conference presentations, open-source contributions, research, or technical community leadership.
- Familiarity with emerging areas such as agentic systems, model evaluation, inference optimization, multimodal systems, responsible AI, AI infrastructure, or developer tooling.
Responsibilities
- Monitor emerging work across AI, machine learning, data science, and applied research, and use technical judgment to determine its relevance to Microsoft’s AI/ML practitioner community.
- Define and deliver an annual community strategy in partnership with community co-leads, aligned with Microsoft’s objectives and ambitions.
- Turn emerging technical themes and practitioner needs into community events, conference sessions, and other learning opportunities throughout the year.
- Partner with the MLADS program co-chair, community leaders, subject-matter experts, and volunteers to develop conference themes, programming, speaker pipelines, and content across multiple events each year.
- Lead technical content selection and peer review, assessing technical quality, novelty, rigor, and practitioner value.
- Drive program execution from calls for content through conference delivery, managing milestones, dependencies, risks, and coordination with the vendor event operations team.
- Develop varied year-round programming that connects practitioners with technical expertise, emerging work, and opportunities to learn and contribute.
- Build relationships across research, engineering, applied science, data science, and product teams to recruit speakers, reviewers, volunteers, and contributors, and to partner with internal AI learning and knowledge programs.
- Organize and make high-value knowledge IP and technical resources discoverable so learning extends beyond individual events.
- Establish repeatable documentation and program practices that support continuity and reduce dependence on individual organizers.
- Coordinate program communications, including calls for content, registration, speaker communications, community updates, and sponsor reporting.
- Track participation, content quality, attendee and contributor feedback, and other program outcomes; use insights to recommend improvements and inform future programming.
- Clearly communicate program status, risks, decisions, and recommendations to community leaders, partners, and sponsors.
Benefits
- Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
