Royalty Operations Program Manager, Global Solutions

Position: Royalty Operations Program Manager, Global Payout Solutions
** Overview*
* Are you passionate about contributing to a high-performing global team that values collaboration, process excellence, and innovation? Do you want to help improve payment experiences that prioritize stakeholder value through compliant, accurate, and scalable execution?

The Global Payout Solutions (GPS) team within Microsoft comprises experts in compliant and accurate payments to Microsoft suppliers and partners. We use digital technologies and data-driven insights to streamline payment processes and inform business decisions.

We are:

People Focused - The needs, well-being, and growth of the team are priorities.

Tomorrow-minded - We focus on innovation and scalability to drive business outcomes.

Data Driven - Decisions and actions are based on data insights.

Customer Obsessed - The needs of our stakeholders, partners, and payment recipients inform our decisions and actions.

Curious - We are passionate about learning, willing to take thoughtful risks, and committed to learning quickly from setbacks.

As a  
** Royalty Operations Program Manager
** within Global Payout Solutions, you will manage and coordinate defined activities across the end-to-end administration of complex outbound royalty agreements for an assigned portfolio supporting a broad range of Microsoft businesses, including, but not limited to, Gaming, Azure, Advertising, Hardware, and third-party intellectual property. This Business Operations and Process Management role combines contract interpretation, operational execution, data analysis, controls, issue resolution, and cross-functional stakeholder management.

You will translate contractual and commercial terms into clear, controlled, and scalable operating requirements; partner with business, legal, finance, engineering, outsourced/BPO operations, and internal operations teams; and help ensure royalty statements and payments are accurate, timely, compliant, and supported by complete evidence. You will use data, dashboards, and operating metrics to identify risk, investigate variances, improve controls, monitor outsourced operational performance, and advance standardization and automation across a high-volume global operation.

This role is well suited to someone who combines process discipline, analytical rigor, sound judgment, attention to detail, ownership, and the ability to influence across teams.

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.

In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

** Responsibilities*
* + Support the end-to-end royalty agreement lifecycle, including administrability review, contract setup, operational requirements, system readiness, statement validation, payment execution, amendments, and termination activities.

+ Interpret complex royalty and commercial terms and translate them into clear calculation, reporting, data, payment, evidence, and control requirements; identify terms that cannot be reliably administered and recommend practical alternatives.

+ Partner with business development, legal, finance, engineering, outsourced/BPO operations, and internal royalty operations teams to clarify ownership, manage dependencies, resolve issues, and support timely launch and ongoing execution.

+ Execute governance routines for outsourced operations, monitor quality and service performance, coordinate escalations, support standardization, and follow through on corrective actions and agreed outcomes.

+ Oversee operational validation of royalty statements, payment inputs, adjustments, and supporting evidence to confirm completeness, contractual alignment, payment accuracy, compliance, and process readiness.

+ Identify, investigate, document, and escalate material variances, control gaps, recurring defects, partner-impacting issues, and risks to payment accuracy, contractual compliance, partner experience, or timely delivery.

+ Use data, and operating metrics to monitor accuracy, timeliness, automation, backlog, partner experience, cost, and service performance; translate findings into decisions, corrective actions, and process improvements.

+…