Senior Technical Program Manager

Overview

The next breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) needs more than powerful accelerators: it needs a network that makes them work as a supercomputer. On Azure Networking's infrastructure team, you build networking for Microsoft-developed AI accelerators and GPUs from NVIDIA, AMD and other suppliers. You turn advances in connectivity into regional network designs that deliver reliable, high-performance training and inference at Microsoft scale.

As a Senior Technical Program Manager in Azure Networking, you will own the introduction of the next-generation Ethernet platform for regional networking at Microsoft scale, from requirements and regional network design through interoperability validation, workload testing, operational readiness and staged production deployments. You will independently drive this charter, creating clarity from ambiguity and aligning engineering and operations on priorities, tradeoffs and delivery. You will draw on Microsoft's networking innovation, including Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC), high-bandwidth networks for Fairwater-class datacenters, and advances in Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) and Multipath Reliable Connection (MRC).

This opportunity will allow you to expand your influence on regional network architecture at Microsoft scale; deepen your expertise in workload-driven platform decisions; and extend your technical leadership across engineering, operations and industry partners.

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.

Responsibilities

• Independently drive the next-generation Ethernet program for regional networking. Turn ambiguous needs into clear requirements and execution plans; set priorities, resolve dependencies and own delivery and readiness outcomes.
• Shape regional network design and topologies with architects. Balance performance, latency, resiliency, failure domains, capacity, scalability and cost for training and inference within a region.
• Apply large-systems thinking to develop new network designs and products with engineers and vendors, resolving interdependencies across network switch and host NIC capabilities, Ethernet fabrics, transport, network management software and network operations.
• Lead interoperability validation and representative workload testing with engineering. Evaluate RDMA and emerging MRC capabilities where appropriate, using congestion, path diversity, failure recovery and accelerator utilization to assess readiness.
• Plan staged production deployments for safe coexistence with the existing fleet. Use compatibility validation, failure injection, limited canaries, telemetry-based release criteria and rehearsed rollback to manage risk before expansion.
• Agree operational-readiness criteria with operations teams, covering support ownership, monitoring, runbooks, capacity and incident response before each production stage.
• Align engineering, operations and partners through influence. Make evidence-based tradeoffs together, resolve competing priorities and use reliability, performance, adoption and recovery metrics to improve post-launch outcomes.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelors Degree AND 4+ years experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development

• OR equivalent experience.

• 2+ 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.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelors Degree AND 8+ years experience engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development

• OR equivalent experience.

• 6+ 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).

• 1+ year(s) of experience with datacenter networking or AI infrastructure, including topology design, high-performance Ethernet, distributed workloads or transport technologies such as RDMA.

• 1+ year(s) of experience bringing hardware and software together through prototyping, interoperability testing, staged deployment and production operations.

• 1+ year(s) of experience independently leading complex cross-team programs, building trust across engineering, operations and external partners, and influencing delivery without direct authority.

#azurecorejobs

Technical Program Management IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800 - $234,700 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 $160,200 - $261,000 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.