Principal Technical Program Manager

Overview

Do you want to be at the forefront of innovating the latest hardware designs to propel Microsoft's cloud growth? Are you seeking a unique career opportunity that combines technical capabilities, cross-team collaboration, with business insight and strategy?

Join the Systems Planning and Architecture (SPARC) team within Microsoft's Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure (AHSI) organization, the team behind Microsoft's expanding Cloud Infrastructure and for powering Microsoft's "Intelligent Cloud" mission. Microsoft delivers more than 200 online services to more than one billion individuals worldwide, and AHSI is the team behind our expanding cloud infrastructure. We deliver the core infrastructure and foundational technologies for Microsofts cloud businesses including Microsoft Azure, Bing, MSN, Office 365, OneDrive, Skype, Teams and Xbox Live.

We are seeking a Principal Technical Program Manager to lead Product Definition for next-generation Azure hardware for Cobalt and Maia silicon programs. In this role, you will translate competitive intelligence, customer needs, and architectural strategy into clear, documented requirements that define product capabilities and measurable program success criteria. You will guide cross-organizational development across silicon, board, firmware, operating system, driver, fabric, workload, and service teams-creating the visibility, formal dependencies, and high-confidence plans needed to reduce execution surprises and deliver integrated products on time. Success requires deep technical judgment, disciplined program leadership, and an inclusive, growth-oriented approach to navigating complex tradeoffs across performance, power, total cost of ownership, reliability, and time to deployment.

Responsibilities

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 achieve 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.

• Own the end-to-end Product Definition process for Azure hardware for Cobalt and Maia silicon programs, converting competitive intelligence, customer engagement, and architectural direction into clearly defined product capabilities and measurable program success criteria.

• Drive creation and ongoing refinement of the full-stack requirements spanning silicon, board, memory, I/O, power, security, firmware, operating systems, virtualization, drivers, fabrics, workloads, and services.

• Identify every team required to support each capability; create clear cross-organizational visibility so partner teams can translate requirements into their own processes, architecture specifications, and execution plans. Identify stakeholder leaders for each capability and keep them highly engaged to ensure informed and aligned planning and execution.

• Establish a comprehensive set of cross-organizational dependencies for planning, with clear owners, commitments, milestones, risks, and closure criteria.

• Partner with our silicon and system architects to lead capability authoring and evaluate with other architects, engineering leads, and program managers to confirm requirements are understood, feasible, and committed before key program milestones.

• Use Product Definition outputs to enable planning forums, building high-confidence schedules for firmware development, silicon validation, platform validation, and end-to-end feature delivery.

• Evaluate architectural and product tradeoffs-including performance, power, reliability, quality of service, telemetry, total cost of ownership, and time to deployment-and drive timely, evidence-based decisions.

• Run cross-functional reviews and end-to-end feature enablement forums that surface gaps early, resolve ambiguity, and reduce execution and post-silicon surprises.

• Communicate Product Definition, decisions, risks, dependencies, and delivery confidence with clarity to executives, technology leaders, and partner organizations inside and outside Microsoft.

• Provide technical and program leadership with respect, integrity, inclusion, and a growth mindset.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelors Degree AND 6+ years experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development OR equivalent experience.
• 3+ years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.

Other Requirements:

Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

This role will require access to information that is controlled for export under export control regulations, potentially under the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations or Export Administration Regulations, the EU Dual Use Regulation, and/or other export control regulations.  As a condition of employment, the successful candidate will be required to provide either proof of their country of citizenship or proof of their US. residency or other protected status (e.g., under 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3)) for assessment of eligibility to access the export-controlled information. To meet this legal requirement, and as a condition of employment, the successful candidate's citizenship will be verified with a valid passport. Lawful permanent residents, refugees, and asylees may verify status using other documents, where applicable.

Preferred qualifications:

• Bachelors Degree AND 12+ years experience engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development OR equivalent experience.
• 8+ years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.
• 1+ year(s) of experience reading and/or writing code (e.g., sample documentation, product demos).
• 2+ years of experience in cloud product or service development and integration.
• 6+ years of program management experience, with a demonstrated record of delivering large, complex, cross-team technical programs. Demonstrated ability to partner with and influence computer architects, hardware design engineers, and executives.
• Advanced degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
• Strong intellectual curiosity and a passion for learning and deploying new technologies.
• Experience with large-scale distributed systems, datacenter infrastructure, or cloud services engineering.
• Experience managing complex partner engagements and leading engineering collaborations.
• Demonstrated ability to effectively leverage AI-powered tools, including Microsoft Copilot and agentic AI coworkers, to enhance productivity, decision-making, and work quality
• Strong self‑direction and problem‑solving skills, with a proven ability to independently drive issues to resolution while providing regular status updates and escalating for guidance when needed.
• Ability to balance technology, business, and strategy when informing roadmap decisions.
• Ability to align diverse stakeholders and influence cross-functional leaders toward decisions that produce measurable impact.
• Excellent executive communication skills, including the ability to lead senior-level discussions and distill complex technical details into clear, relevant messages.
• Demonstrated customer focus, with experience translating customer requirements into product capabilities.
• Familiarity with developing programs through phase-gate processes.

Technical Program Management IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:

https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.