Principal Datacenter Operations Manager

Microsoft Cloud Operations & Innovation (CO+I) is the engine that powers Microsoft’s cloud services. Reporting directly to the Metro Leader, the Principal Datacenter Operations Manager ensures new and retrofitted datacenter infrastructure is ready for safe, reliable operations; orchestrates large-scale deployments; and translates metro-wide strategy into coordinated priorities, plans, and governance across campuses and functions. The role also leads change management and oversees facilities management across the Chicago Metro. Its scope spans design, construction, commissioning, operational readiness, turnover, stabilization, warranty, early-life performance, and modifications within live datacenter environments.

This leader connects the teams that design and deliver Microsoft datacenters with the teams that operate them, providing a coordinated Operations voice across Critical Environments (CE), IT, and Logistics. The role ensures safety, security, reliability, availability, quality, maintainability, and long-term operability are built in from the start. In parallel, the leader partners with the Metro Leader and functional leaders to align metro priorities, coordinate cross-campus planning, manage dependencies, and resolve gaps in ownership while preserving each Director’s accountability for execution and operational outcomes.

In this role, you will establish the organization’s strategy, governance, priorities, operating model, and culture; build and develop a high-performing team; and oversee operational readiness and infrastructure integrity across new datacenter builds, upgrades, retrofits, and live-site modifications. You will lead the planning cadence, decision forums, and cross-functional alignment that turn metro strategy into coordinated action, including change-management governance and facilities-management oversight across the Chicago Metro. Success requires strong organizational leadership, trusted partnerships, disciplined portfolio governance, and the ability to translate technical and operational risk into clear, decision-ready recommendations for leadership.

1. Organizational Leadership and Strategy

• Build, lead, coach, and develop the Operations integration function across Strategic Design & Construction Operations Coordination, Tactical Construction Site Operations Coordination, and Turnover Deliverables & Post-Operation Coordination.
• Establish organizational strategy, priorities, governance, operating rhythm, performance expectations, resource allocation, and a long-term capability roadmap aligned with CO+I priorities.
• Lead and develop technical and program-management talent, strengthening technical depth, leadership capability, succession readiness, and organizational resilience.
• Lead integrated metro-wide capacity, workforce, and succession planning, allocating resources across campuses, sites, and programs based on business priority, infrastructure complexity, operational risk, portfolio demand, and long-term capability needs.
• Foster a culture centered on safety, security, quality, accountability, inclusion, partnership, operational excellence, continuous improvement, and One Microsoft principles.
• Represent the Operations integration function with Metro, regional, and broader CO+I leadership.
• Partner with the Metro Leader to set metro-wide strategy, priorities, guardrails, and decision rights, and translate that direction into aligned plans across Datacenter IT Operations, Critical Environments (CE), and IAM/Logistics leadership.
• Coordinate a unified planning cadence across campuses and Capacity Clusters, tracking cross-functional dependencies, risks, progress, and ownership gaps against metro priorities.

2. Datacenter Lifecycle Integration and Operational Readiness

• Lead Operations integration across design, construction, commissioning, operational readiness, turnover, stabilization, warranty, and post-turnover lifecycle activities.
• Ensure CE, IT, Logistics, maintainability, reliability, safety, security, and operational requirements are incorporated into infrastructure designs and formal design reviews.
• Establish Operations engagement throughout construction and commissioning, including quality reviews, readiness assessments, L2-L5 commissioning participation, and resolution of operational concerns before turnover.
• Establish standardized operational-readiness governance aligned with site-transition milestones, clear acceptance criteria, and defined decision rights.
• Ensure infrastructure, documentation, procedures, spares, training, tooling, systems, and operational dependencies are ready before operational acceptance, enabling Operations teams to safely and effectively assume ownership on Day 1.
• Support Go/No-Go and readiness decisions with clear, data-driven assessments of infrastructure and operational risk.
• Provide governance for post-turnover stabilization, warranty, and defect resolution, including monitoring early-life performance and driving corrective actions.

3. Infrastructure Integrity, Reliability, and Risk

• Establish a proactive approach to identifying and mitigating infrastructure and operational risk before it affects safety, security, availability, readiness, cost, schedule, or creates long-term technical debt.
• Use reliability data, commissioning findings, defect trends, operational incidents, equipment performance, and field experience to identify systemic risks and recurring issues.
• Partner with engineering, construction, commissioning, Operations, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and vendors to drive corrective and preventive actions.
• Establish mechanisms for monitoring infrastructure integrity and early-life reliability across the Metro portfolio.
• Ensure lessons learned are converted into measurable improvements in future designs, standards, construction practices, commissioning, and operational-readiness processes.

4. Infrastructure Delivery, Construction Governance, and Live-Site Portfolio

• Provide Principal Datacenter Operations Manager-level governance across new datacenter delivery and a portfolio of Metro Operations construction projects, including infrastructure retrofits, upgrades, corrective work, and design modifications within operating datacenters.
• Maintain portfolio oversight for approved projects ranging from approximately $250K to $100M, with accountability for delivery strategy, prioritization, risk, financial performance, and operational outcomes.
• Ensure construction and infrastructure work in live environments is governed through rigorous change management, risk assessment, Method of Procedure (MOP) and Emergency Operating Procedure (EOP) review, commissioning, and outage planning to protect safety, customer availability, and operational continuity.
• Partner with Datacenter Engineering (DCE), Datacenter Delivery (DCD), Commissioning, and Operations to shape and govern infrastructure changes, ensuring new and modified assets are documented, commissioned, maintainable, and supportable by Operations.
• Drive scalable and cost-effective solutions while reducing rework, warranty exposure, duplicate effort, and avoidable operational cost.

5. Cross-Functional Operations Integration

• Serve as the senior Operations integration leader across CE, IT, Logistics, DCD, DCE, Commissioning, end-to-end organizations, Field Operations, contractors, OEMs, Metro Operations, and other key partners.
• Establish the role as the single integration point and one window into Operations for requirements across electrical, mechanical, controls, IT infrastructure, networking, structured cabling, logistics, spares, receiving, and asset management.
• Build trusted partnerships and establish clear accountability, decision-making, communication, and escalation mechanisms across participating organizations, applying a One Microsoft mindset to align teams around shared operational outcomes.
• Ensure Operations teams have the knowledge, documentation, training, tools, systems access, and resources required to safely and effectively operate new and modified infrastructure.
• Maintain continuity of operational knowledge and lessons learned across projects and sites.
• Align campuses and Capacity Clusters to metro priorities within agreed guardrails; in Tier 4 / X-Large metros, coordinate cross-Metro planning, alignment, and communications with the Metro GM and other Metro Leaders.
• Oversee facilities management across the Chicago Metro, aligning campus facilities plans, maintenance priorities, service standards, and issue resolution with metro-wide safety, reliability, availability, and cost objectives while preserving local and functional leaders’ accountability for execution.
• Provide metro-wide strategy, integration, and governance oversight without assuming local operational execution; Campus Directors retain ownership and accountability for campus execution and initiatives, while OU Portfolio, Capacity Cluster, IT, CE, and other functional Directors retain end-to-end accountability for their respective strategies, delivery, and operational outcomes.

6. Governance, Executive Communication, and Financial Accountability

• Establish consistent governance for infrastructure readiness, with clear decision rights, escalation paths, response expectations, and accountability.
• Ensure appropriate Operations representation in formal design reviews, readiness, Go/No-Go, and infrastructure-governance forums, supported by a centralized intake and issue-management model.
• Provide Metro and regional leadership with concise reporting on portfolio health, readiness, schedule, financial performance, infrastructure risk, reliability, and key decisions.
• Translate complex technical and operational issues into clear, decision-ready information for senior leadership and serve as the senior Operations escalation point for significant infrastructure-delivery and readiness risks.
• Maintain accountability for safety, security, quality, scope, schedule, financial performance, operational readiness, reliability, and risk across the integrated portfolio.
• Provide fiscal oversight for approved budgets and oversee vendor strategy, contracting, performance, and commercial accountability.
• Lead change management across the Chicago Metro, coordinating impact and risk assessments, stakeholder alignment, communications, readiness, and adoption for infrastructure, facilities, and operating-model changes; ensure clear approval, escalation, and implementation governance while maintaining functional ownership of execution.
• Maintain clear metro-wide escalation paths and decision forums, raise issues early, and enable timely, well-informed decisions across CE, IT, and IAM/Logistics leadership.
• Keep the Metro aligned to the standardized organizational model and Organization Design Guardrails, preparing capacity and complexity evidence for leadership-layer changes or exceptions reviewed through the Two-Lens Framework and approved through LT governance.
• Serve as a trusted strategy and integration partner to the Metro Leader while functional Directors retain end-to-end accountability for operational execution and outcomes.

7. Operational Excellence and Continuous Improvement

• Establish and monitor meaningful key performance indicators (KPIs) for infrastructure readiness, delivery quality, reliability, issue resolution, schedule performance, risk reduction, cost efficiency, and organizational effectiveness.
• Use performance insights and lessons learned to establish common standards, share best practices across campuses, identify systemic opportunities, and drive measurable improvements in processes and future datacenter delivery.
• Track indicators such as readiness milestone completion, issue aging, commissioning and turnover defect trends, documentation quality, early-life operational issues, infrastructure availability, capacity acceptance, warranty trends, recurring failures, risk closure, rework and cost avoidance, and lessons-learned implementation.
• Develop a scalable and repeatable infrastructure-integrity and operational-readiness model that strengthens integration between datacenter delivery and Operations across CO+I.

Required Qualifications:

• High School Qualification or equivalent AND 10+ 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) OR equivalent experience.
• 3+ years' people management experience.

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:

• Bachelor's or Technical College Degree in Computer Science, Math, Telecommunications, Electrical/Mechanical Engineering, Supply Chain Management or related field AND 15+ years' experience in enterprise-level experience managing large scale and complex projects/programs, or critical environment infrastructures (e.g., UPS, Generator, AHU), or working in physical IT infrastructures (e.g., Servers, SANs, Networking, Capacity, DC Rack/Enclosures, structured cabling) OR High School Qualification or equivalent AND 17+ years' experience in enterprise-level experience managing large scale and complex projects/programs, or critical environment infrastructures (e.g., UPS, Generator, AHU), or working in physical IT infrastructures (e.g., Servers, SANs, Networking, Capacity, DC Rack/Enclosures, structured cabling) OR equivalent experience.
• 5+ years' people management experience.
• Applicable certifications: APICS/Inventory Control, CompTIA, Microsoft, Network Certifications, CCNA Certifications, ITIL v3 Foundation, Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) Certifications, Leadership Development Certifications, PMP, CDCMP.
• Demonstrated experience across multiple infrastructure lifecycle stages, including design, construction, commissioning, operational readiness, turnover, stabilization, warranty, or live-site operations.
• Demonstrated understanding of mission-critical infrastructure, operational risk, infrastructure delivery, safety, security, quality, cost, schedule, commissioning, and reliability.
• Demonstrated ability to lead through influence and establish accountability across organizations and partners outside direct reporting relationships.
• Strong executive communication skills, with the ability to translate complex technical, operational, and business risks into clear recommendations and decisions.
• Proven ability to anticipate, assess, and mitigate infrastructure and operational risk and to build trusted partnerships across engineering, construction, commissioning, Operations, and vendor organizations.
• Demonstrated experience aligning strategy, priorities, and integrated plans across IT Operations, Critical Environments, IAM/Logistics, or comparable cross-functional organizations.
• Experience establishing and operating governance mechanisms, including escalation paths, decision forums, performance reviews, guardrails, and structured decision-making.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional initiatives and influence senior leaders and Directors without direct authority while preserving clear functional accountability.
• Demonstrated systems and strategic thinking, governance discipline, cross-functional collaboration, and executive communication skills.
• Extensive experience leading organizations or programs responsible for datacenter infrastructure, operational readiness, critical environments, infrastructure reliability, or large-scale mission-critical operations.
• Experience leading infrastructure programs across multiple sites, campuses, or a regional portfolio.
• Experience delivering retrofit, upgrade, and design-change programs in live mission-critical environments while protecting customer availability and operational continuity.
• Experience across the full infrastructure lifecycle, including design reviews, L1-L5 commissioning, turnover, stabilization, warranty, and operational lifecycle management.
• Working knowledge of Critical Environment infrastructure, including electrical, mechanical, controls, uninterruptible power supply (UPS), generators, switchgear, cooling systems, and battery energy storage systems (BESS), plus familiarity with IT infrastructure, networking, structured cabling, and datacenter logistics.
• Relevant professional certifications or licenses such as PMP, CDCMP, CxA/ACG, LEED AP, OSHA 30, or applicable engineering or construction credentials.
• Experience with organizational design, capacity planning, Capacity Clusters, or multi-site and cross-Metro operating models in hyperscale or mission-critical environments.

Data Center Operations Management M6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $140,200 - $284,400 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 $185,600 - $312,000 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.