Datacenter Operations Manager

Overview

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, and we need you as a Datacenter Operations Manager.

Microsoft’s Cloud Operations & Innovation (CO+I) is the engine that powers our cloud services. As a CO+I Datacenter Operations Manager, you will perform a key role in delivering the core infrastructure and foundational technologies for Microsoft's online services including Bing, Office 365, Xbox, OneDrive, and the Microsoft Azure platform. As a group, CO+I is focused on the personal and professional development for all employees and offers trainings and growth opportunities including Career Rotation Programs, Diversity & Inclusion trainings and events, and professional certifications.

Our infrastructure is comprised of a large global portfolio of more than 100 datacenters and 1 million servers. Our foundation is built upon and managed by a team of subject matter experts working to support services for more than 1 billion customers and 20 million businesses in over 90 countries worldwide.

With environmental sustainability and optimization at the forefront of our datacenter design and operations, we continue to grow and evolve as we meet the ever-changing business demands that hold Microsoft as a world-class cloud provider.

Do you want to empower billions across the world? Come and join us in CO+I and be at the forefront of the action!

There is the option to work 1 day per week from home, subject to the discretion of the line manager.

Responsibilities

As a Datacenter Operations Manager, your success will be measured by:

People Management

• Deliver success through empowerment and accountability by modeling, coaching, and caring.
• Live our culture, embody our values, and practice our leadership principles.
• Define team objectives and outcomes, enable success across boundaries, and help the team adapt and learn.
• Attract and retain great people, know everyone’s capabilities and aspirations, and invest in the growth of others.

Data Center Operations

• Document and drive alignment on dependencies, supplier contracts, success metrics, resource readiness, operational, supportability, and manageability criteria.
• Review Service Level Agreements (SLAs), Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and Objectives & Key Results (OKRs) and provide input to improve or increase efficiency across IT and Critical Environment (CE) services.
• Partner cross-functionally to support global and regional initiatives (e.g., environmental health and safety, risk assessments, certifications).
• Manages/supports alignment to budget of the Data Center and makes tradeoff decisions to adhere to sound fiscal practices.
• Support budget planning and forecasting demand costs, driving awareness among business leaders on implications of service management issues and negotiating to win resources of costs, risks, and team leads as required.
• Plan and work with business partners when executing their requirements to maintain adherence to datacenter availability, safety, and security.
• Follows and adheres to run book provided by Environment, Health, & Safety division. Reports immediately any safety or security issues or concerns.

Service Delivery

• Accountable for end-to-end service compliance, quality, and client satisfaction for the agreed-upon service levels.
• Manage relationships with clients to ensure that all expectations are clarified and understood and deliver solutions that exceed client expectations while maintaining a strong customer focus.
• Applies deep subject matter expertise and escalates to meet SLA/OLAs with minimal disruption to the client/customer and business and reviews metrics with team to ensure understanding of targets and current performance levels.
• Share common and repeating cases with regional and global teams, while providing best practices to address and mitigate recurrence of issues and implement more efficient solutions for resolution.
• Manage resources appropriately to accommodate pilot programs and task force participation and make recommendations for additional funding where necessary.
• Understand future business demand within the datacenter to ensure staffing levels are appropriate.
• Ensure teams complete the required training and partner with Learning & Development organization to evolve training portfolio.
• Participate in every Sev 1 and Sev 2 Incident Bridge meeting and approve root cause analysis and postmortem reporting.
• Empowers teams to work collaboratively and creates visibility to help other teams succeed with regional/global management teams.

Data Center Work Environment

• Remove barriers that inhibit agility to enable team to shift priorities quickly without losing productivity.
• Maintain a broad perspective and work to incorporate diverse viewpoints while identifying and evaluating opportunities to create strategies that cross organizational boundaries and drive broad business goals.
• Establish a culture of safety, quality, and customer obsession while ensuring the team’s standards are consistent with overall service objectives.
• Create the type of conditions for successful collaboration, geared toward identifying and resolving organization-wide issues by bringing together creative and relevant solutions from diverse perspectives.
• Understand workforce capability and delegate work accordingly across team to effectively deliver results, finding ways to accomplish more by enabling others.
• Find opportunities for collaboration across groups within division, ensure that cross-team commitments are set, and achieve scale by enabling the work of others.
• Delegate to others to promote growth and development of future leaders.
• Act as a trusted resource and advisor to a wide network of colleagues with diverse viewpoints.
• Recognize team successes and reward teamwork and contributions to team success while driving a culture that’s focused on meeting strategic goals.

Ownership

• Have pride and a sense of personal accountability for end-to-end service quality, completeness, and resulting customer experience.
• Identify unaddressed issues across service and resolve, escalate, or find the appropriate owner to ensure the highest level of quality.
• Drive and own the service management perspective to ensure that business leaders understand the business implications of risks, dependencies, and budgets to enable good business decisions and ensure the long-term value of the service.
• Model and foster accountability and morale for the team.

Other

• Embody our Microsoft One culture and values.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• High School Diploma or equivalent AND 5+ years’ experience of mission-critical service management (e.g., providing IT services, manufacturing, warehouse, retail, military, or managing physical operations in an IT and/or critical environment infrastructure).
• 3+ years’ people manager experience, leading a diverse, technical team.

Background Check 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

• 6+ years enterprise-level experience managing large scale and complex projects/programs AND 6+ years’ experience in Critical Environment infrastructures (e.g., UPS, Generator, AHU) AND 6+ years’ experience in physical IT infrastructures (e.g., Servers, SANs, Networking, Capacity, DC Rack/Enclosures, structured cabling) AND Experience managing budget $1M+.
• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Math, Telecommunications, Electrical/Mechanical Engineering, Supply Chain Management, or related field.
• 5+ years’ experience leading diverse, technical workforce or managing global and virtual teams.
• Applicable certifications: ASICS/Inventory Control, CompTIA, Microsoft, Network Certifications, CCNA Certifications, ITIL v3 Foundation, Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) Certifications, Leadership Development Certifications, PMP, CDCP.

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

Key skills/competency

• Datacenter Operations
• People Management
• Service Delivery Management
• SLA/KPI Management
• Critical Environments (CE)
• IT Infrastructure Management
• Budget Management
• Risk Assessment
• Process Improvement
• Cloud Operations