[Hiring] Principal Strategic Operations Lead @Microsoft

Role Description

The Cloud & AI organization accelerates Microsoft’s mission and bold ambitions to ensure that our company and industry is securing digital technology platforms, devices, and clouds in our customers’ heterogeneous environments, as well as ensuring the security of our own internal estate. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world.

We are looking for a Principal Strategic Operations Lead to join the team!

• Identify emerging gaps in CDO’s operating posture, including those created by AI-accelerated threat timelines, and define strategic responses before they become crises.
• Define and drive CDO’s operating model evolution: what needs to change, what needs to be built, and how the organization should sequence the work.
• Advise CISO org leadership on operating model design, organizational integration, and AI adoption strategy based on cross-functional insights and external landscape analysis.
• Design and stand up operating structures for priority strategic projects, then decrease involvement as functional leads take ownership.
• Drive AI adoption strategy for CDO: use-case intake, prioritization frameworks, governance guardrails, and maturity measurement.
• Serve as the connective layer across functional leads, ensuring dependencies are visible and cross-cutting work streams stay synchronized.
• Surface early signals when a charter is stalling — missed deadlines, shifting goalposts, adoption gaps — and escalate with clarity and recommended action.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's 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.

Requirements

• Candidates must be able to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role.
• Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Benefits

• Technical Program Management IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 per year.
• 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.