Senior Principal Technical Program Manager

Overview

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.

Microsoft's Cloud Operations & Innovation (CO+I) team is the engine that powers our cloud services. CO+I delivers and operates the safest, most available and secure cloud in the industry. Cloud Infrastructure Automation and Optimization (CIAO) is the software team that delivers tools, automation, and AI to enable fast, predictable delivery of datacenter capacity, and safe, reliable, and efficient execution of the processes associated with the full life cycle of datacenter management and operations.

We are looking for a Senior Principal Technical Program Manager to coordinate and drive the delivery our software portfolio to maximize availability and minimize waste across our supply chain and data center resources. This role is a leadership lynchpin in the delivery of business value across CO+I, as well as upstream and downstream partner organizations. Working closely with business leaders, the role is critical in defining the technical strategy, requirements, and delivery of complex software, coupled with algorithmic support for various production processes.

In the coming agentic environment, this role can create the future, applying emerging ideas and technologies toward efficiency, availability, and scale.

This leader will have the ability to create and maintain a high-performance culture, define and support a highly complex set of systems and processes, and partner with multiple cross-functional leaders to deliver value for the company. The surface area is large, enabling the optimization of capacity plans that drive billions of dollars of spend and that serve as a key leverage for overall company growth.

This leader will have to drive the right outcomes through ambiguity and massive change, and should have experience leading global, business critical organizations through significant  alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day. As a group, CO+I is focused on personal and professional development for all employees and offers training and growth opportunities including Diversity & Inclusion trainings and events, and professional certifications.

Responsibilities

Analysis of Customer and Business Needs

* Builds and scales customer experiences across multiple groups, divisions, and stakeholders, both internally and externally.

* Develops complex problem statements, forms hypotheses, and leads experiments to validate solutions across products, services, systems, and infrastructure.

* Leverages AI, telemetry, research, and customer insights to identify trends, root causes, dependencies, and business opportunities while ensuring the integrity of AI-generated insights.

* Drives alignment among customers, stakeholders, leadership, and market needs, influencing feature prioritization, strategic decisions, and cross-divisional improvements.

Product/Service/Solution Definition

* Defines program goals, priorities, and deliverables aligned with organizational strategy and business objectives across multiple functional areas.

* Partners with Engineering, Design, Marketing, Security, and technical architects to design scalable, future-proof solutions and architectures.

* Leads risk management practices using data, AI, and automation to identify tradeoffs, mitigate risks, and support critical decision-making.

* Establishes success criteria, KPIs, and OKRs, ensuring telemetry and measurement frameworks are in place to demonstrate business value and ROI.

Product/Service/Solution Development

* Leads end-to-end planning, scheduling, dependency management, and execution of complex cross-functional programs using AI, automation, and workflow optimization.

* Drives multi-year roadmaps, resource planning, and delivery strategies while ensuring solutions meet quality, security, compliance, and Responsible AI standards.

* Orchestrates collaboration across internal teams, external partners, and stakeholders to achieve alignment, resolve issues, and influence leadership decisions.

* Oversees release planning, KPI evaluation, testing strategies, quality improvements, and compliance with privacy, accessibility, safety, and legal requirements.

Product/Service/Solution Performance

* Monitors and analyzes performance metrics, customer feedback, telemetry, and operational data to identify insights and drive continuous improvement.

* Conducts experiments, validates hypotheses, and implements data-driven actions that improve product performance, customer outcomes, and business impact.

* Enhances supportability through root-cause analysis, AI-driven monitoring,…