Worldwide Government, Defense, & Intelligence Industry CTO

Microsoft•,

7d•$142,800 - $304,200

About The Position

Microsoft Frontier Company is Microsoft's outcome-driven AI engineering and delivery business, a global organization of industry experts, world-class architects, forward-deployed engineers, consultants, and delivery professionals who work together to bring Microsoft's mission of empowerment and cutting-edge technology to life for the world's most influential customers. Frontier Company is helping shape how AI, delivery discipline, and deep industry expertise come together to create faster, better, and more measurable customer outcomes, embedding our experts directly with customers to co-design, deploy, operate, and continuously improve AI systems tied to real business impact. We work side by side with customers across the full Frontier Transformation journey and pride ourselves on embracing a growth mindset, inspiring excellence, and encouraging everyone to share their unique viewpoints and be their authentic selves. Join us and help create life-changing innovations that impact billions around the world. The Worldwide Government, Defense, & Intelligence (GD&I) Industry CTO for Microsoft Frontier Company is the technology leader responsible for identifying, shaping, and scaling agentic technology patterns across the most strategic global Government, Defense, Intelligence, and Defense Industrial Base (DIB) customers. This role translates complex mission needs into repeatable, secure, compliant agentic solution patterns that deliver real-world value and impactful mission outcomes. The CTO serves as the bridge between industry advisors, forward deployed engineering (FDE), product groups, and industry leadership to connect customer demand, market signals, technical roadmaps, and repeatable solution opportunities. They shape engineering roadmap direction based on industry priorities, and anticipate emerging technologies, opportunities, and blockers as the world evolves. They are skilled at pattern recognition, identifying common customer needs and ensuring Microsoft Frontier Company delivers mission outcomes that translate to value for both the customer and for Microsoft. The CTO will help Microsoft win priority strategic customers, shape the Frontier and FDE opportunity pipeline, influence engineering product and platform roadmaps, and scale proven patterns across markets, partners, and customer segments. This role is externally visible with public sector leaders, partners, and standards bodies, as well as internally influential across Microsoft, Engineering, Partner, Legal & Gov Affairs, and Field Sales communities. It is a senior individual contributor role on the GD&I industry team with significant influence both internally and externally. If you are technical, strategic, sales-oriented, and passionate about Government, Defense, and Intelligence missions, this role is for you! Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Requirements

3+ years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.
Bachelor's Degree AND 6+ years experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development OR equivalent experience.
Active U.S. Government Secret Security Clearance.
Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements.
Microsoft Cloud Background Check.
Verification of U.S. citizenship due to citizenship-based legal restrictions.
Citizenship will be verified via a valid passport, or other approved documents, or verified US government Clearance.

Nice To Haves

Expertise in one or more areas including AI, cloud, cybersecurity, digital transformation, and/or technology policy, including trends relevant to government, defense, intelligence, or regulated industries at a global level.
Experience leading technology initiatives involving sovereignty, compliance, authority to operate, security, and/or mission-critical regulated environments.
Demonstrated ability to influence product or engineering strategy across multiple organizations without direct authority, in alignment with sales strategy.
Executive customer engagement experience with high-level government, defense, intelligence, DIB, and/or national security stakeholders.
Experience building and leading global communities of practice, technical governance forums, or cross-functional execution rhythms.
Experience with government, defense, intelligence, national security, sovereign cloud, or classified/regulated mission environments.
Public speaking, standards-body participation, executive advisory, and/or GD&I-relevant thought-leadership experience. Respected, known, and influential at scale.

Responsibilities

Define and evolve the GD&I technology vision for Microsoft Frontier Company, with emphasis on AI, agentic solutions, security, sovereignty, and regulatory compliance.
Serve as the bridge between industry advisors, FDE studios, engineering, industry leadership, and field sales, connecting customer demand, market signals, roadmap gaps, and repeatable solution patterns.
Prioritize impact, scalable opportunities where Frontier Company can create differentiated customer outcomes and measurable business impact.
Shape technology roadmaps by converting customer and regulatory requirements into actionable engineering feedback and product priorities.
Partner with industry leadership, industry advisors, account teams, and FDE studios to technically qualify and prioritize opportunities.
Drive pattern recognition across FDE engagements and convert learnings into reusable architectures, playbooks, partner motions, and scalable solution assets.
Help reduce friction & risk by identifying technical blockers, architectural gaps, compliance dependencies, and partner requirements.
Ensure Microsoft Frontier Company engagements are grounded in customer mission outcomes, secure-by-design architectures, and clear paths to net-new cloud revenue and durable platform adoption.
Build trusted relationships with senior government, defense, intelligence, DIB, and national security technology leaders, serving as a strategic advisor on frontier technologies and agentic AI transformation.
Engage directly in strategic accounts and high-priority opportunities to accelerate customer transformation, support executive decision-making, and strengthen Microsoft differentiation.
Represent Microsoft in customer briefings, industry forums, standards bodies, policy discussions, and external events where GD&I technology leadership and credibility are required.
Translate Microsoft technology strategy into language that resonates with mission owners, acquisition leaders, CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, CISOs, and operational commanders.
Serve as a principal connection point between GD&I customer needs and Microsoft Engineering, ensuring AI, security, sovereignty, compliance, and regulated-industry requirements are reflected in product plans.
Partner with Engineering, CELA, security, compliance, and government affairs stakeholders on authorization, regulatory, and procurement motions including FedRAMP, NIST, sovereign requirements, ATO pathways, and mission-specific controls.
Accelerate resolution of technical and policy blockers that affect strategic customer commitments, delivery, and scale.
Shape partner integration and platform adoption strategies with software vendors, systems integrators, and mission partners where co-build and co-delivery are required to scale.
Operate as the single-point CTO for the GD&I industry while leading through influence across a matrixed set of industry, sales, engineering, partner, and delivery teams.
Establish clear rhythms with industry advisors, FDE studio peers, business leaders, engineering leaders, and field technical communities to align priorities, conduct technical sales enablement, and remove friction.
Mentor and develop technical leaders across the GD&I ecosystem.
Create mechanisms to share patterns, lessons learned, and technical guidance so successful Frontier and FDE engagements can repeat and scale globally.