Senior Technical Program Manager

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

4d•$119,800 - $234,700

About The Position

The Office of the CTO (OCTO) works across Microsoft’s research, engineering, product, and business organizations to address complex technical challenges and partnerships. This role is part of a small, high-leverage organization where priorities move quickly and work may be ambiguous. Success requires sound judgment, adaptability, cross-organizational influence, and persistence in moving complex work forward. Microsoft is seeking an experienced Senior Technical Program Manager with a technical foundation in software engineering, data science, machine learning, applied science, or AI engineering to co-lead the internal AI/ML Community and the Machine Learning, AI & Data Science Conference (MLADS). The programs serve a global community of more than 25,000 employees, connecting practitioners across research, engineering, data science, applied science, and product organizations to share expertise, discover emerging technical work, and advance learning and collaboration. The role calls for technical depth to engage credibly with researchers and engineers, evaluate technical work and emerging AI approaches, and assess whether developments are meaningful to Microsoft’s practitioner community. The position combines that judgment with program leadership to shape technical programming and partnerships. The Senior Technical Program Manager will work with researchers, engineers, technical leaders, and community partners to identify valuable work, connect people and expertise, and deliver technical programming. The role independently drives complex programs from idea through execution, balancing technical discussions with program delivery. Responsibilities include setting community strategy and programming; co-leading MLADS conference content and execution; growing and sustaining the AI/ML Community; making valuable technical content discoverable and maintaining repeatable program practices; and coordinating communications, stakeholders, and program-health measures.

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 technical depth to engage credibly with researchers and engineers.
Experience evaluating AI/ML technologies, research, technical proposals, or applied systems and assessing 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.
6+ 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.

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.
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.
2+ years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.

Responsibilities

Monitor emerging work across AI, machine learning, data science, and applied research, assess its alignment with Microsoft strategy, and determine its relevance to the AI/ML practitioner community.
Define and deliver an annual community strategy with community co-leads in support of Microsoft’s objectives and ambitions.
Turn emerging technical themes and practitioner needs into community events, gatherings, 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 submissions with reviewers for 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 collaborate with other internal AI-learning and knowledge programs.
Organize and make high-value technical knowledge and resources discoverable so learning continues beyond individual events.
Establish repeatable documentation and program practices that support continuity and reduce dependence on individual organizers.
Coordinate 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.