Overview
As a **Senior Networking Project Manager **you will engage with customer stakeholders to develop partnerships, leveraging broad technical expertise. Drives customer satisfaction by engaging with customers stakeholders in a positive manner, reviewing and analyzing customer feedback, and leveraging trusted relationships with key internal resources to act as the voice of the customer. Adheres to project compliance standards and requirements of the contract and accommodates customer compliance standards. Drives project initiation for projects of medium complexity by delivering a workstream within a larger project/program. Facilitates contracting process for partner resources by briefing partners, coordinating partner candidate interviews, and identifying and acclimating partner resources to the team. Develops detailed project management plan to drive predictable delivery for projects of medium complexity or supports senior colleagues in projects of high complexity. Provides review of defined metrics, proactively monitors and tracks risks, ensures timely completion and quality of deliverables, and manages stakeholder communications. Drives timely project closure by ensuring completion of project sign off tasks. Applies advanced knowledge across project management principle areas, contributes at local team-wide level to share knowledge and support others, serves as a mentor to junior colleagues to grow identified skill gaps, and participates in cross-border mentoring and peer alignment to share lessons learned on challenging projects.
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
**Account Delivery Management **
- Drives and maintains obligations to customer across the delivery lifecycle including envisioning, solution development, delivery planning, cloud consumption and usage, delivery management while ensuring adherence to security best practices in partnership with Solution Area SMEs. Ensures that customer-required or market-required security certifications are active. Leads or participates in steering committee meetings with strategic customers to discuss progress toward delivery success.
- Contributes to consumption activities, through others (e.g., Customer Success resources), for customers by identifying blockers to consumption goals and enabling customers, through internal teams, to get the full value of their purchases. Holds accountability for project delivery forecast.
- Supports relationships with key stakeholders in the customer portfolio to ensure service delivery is on track and issues are being anticipated, identified, and managed. Communicates current view of delivery to customer stakeholders, as appropriate.
- Collaborates with Sales to support contract setup, signature, compliance, and execution from deal approvals to invoicing and closure. Manages areas of fiscal responsibility within project portfolio, staying within budget while driving engagement profitability and risk management.
**Business Growth **
- Demonstrates accountability for the financial health of a project or program (e.g., revenue attainment, accurate forecasting, cost management, and utilization, skills, and capacity planning). Identifies opportunities to accelerate and drive consumption and delivery. Owns and drives backlog risk management. Drives incremental business on top of existing projects and programs through next step proposals, conducts customer discussions related to next stage proposal (NSP) and other opportunities. Engages in the pursuit cycle to ensure deals are structured appropriately. Supports and contributes to rhythm of business (ROB) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) forecasting.
- Looks for or creates opportunities to maximize timely cloud consumption through current deliveries. Identifies new opportunities with customers and facilitates follow up conversations with customers on Consumption both strategically and operational, and to accelerate delivery or prevent delivery delays.
**Closure **
- Applies advanced knowledge across project management principle areas to execution and delivery, contributes at local team-wide level to share knowledge and support others, serves as a mentor to less experienced colleagues to grow identified skill gaps, and participates in cross-border mentoring and peer alignment to share lessons learned on challenging projects.
- Drives timely project closure by ensuring completion of project sign off tasks (e.g., system closeout updates, deletion of customer data, Deliverable Acceptance Form). Drives incremental process improvement by reflecting on and sharing lessons learned across teams, creating and suggesting improvements to intellectual property (IP), providing feedback to managers on team member performance, and conducting closeout interviews with team members.
**Contracting **
- Facilitates contracting process for customer and partner resources (e.g., contractors, vendors) by briefing partners, coordinating partner candidate interviews, and identifying and acclimating partner resources to the team. Supports negotiation and structuring of fixed-fee subcontractor contracts with oversight from senior colleagues. Monitors and initiates Amendments, Delivery Acceptance, Proof of Delivery, and Invoicing processes. Reviews contracts according to security and data governance standards. Provides session on SFI/SBD to the onboarding partner team
**Initiation **
- Balances needs across projects in challenging situations (e.g., scarce technical resources), with support from senior colleagues as needed, and collaborates with other groups (e.g., resource managers, Global Delivery Center) on integrated planning and organization of onshore/offshore projects.
- Drives project initiation for projects of medium complexity (e.g., multiple offerings, and/or supports projects of high complexity (e.g., tailored offerings, high visibility, high impact, market making) by delivering a workstream within a larger project/program, by driving commitment of delivery resources, assigning resources, assisting in sourcing and qualifying partner resources, and creating work breakdown structures (WBSs) with delivery team. Drives checklist and process finalization for Secure Future Initiative (SFI) with team and customers
**Intellectual Property (IP) **
- Researches and proactively shares intellectual property (IP) and provides recommendations for improvement including submitting new IP. Holds others accountable for reusing appropriate IP and collective knowledge by enforcing use of processes and artifacts with team members.
**Monitoring and Controlling **
- Orchestrates and oversees a broad range of project metrics on midsize to large projects with high visibility (e.g., Vice President-level). Proactively ensures adherence to key performance indicators (KPIs) and provides strategic direction to drive success throughout project lifecycle.
- Discusses and confirms Microsoft change control processes at kickoff with customer. Anticipates changes and proactively addresses by probing to ensure change can happen smoothly early in the process. Tests process before initiating formal change.
- Ensures timely completion and quality of deliverables (e.g., documents) and tracking of agreed upon metrics for projects of standard complexity by applying quality management techniques (e.g., benchmarking, interviews) for collecting data. Uses analyses to identify solutions to systemic issues.
- Proactively manages risks (including security risks) and issues within projects of standard complexity, leveraging technical knowledge and previous experience to evaluate risks, perform qualitative analyses (e.g., probability, impact, urgency), create risk management plans, establish processes, and work with cross-functional groups and leaders to mitigate identified risks. Contributes to recovery efforts and ensures tools are updated. Manages issue closure as a high priority. Ensures that the mandatory Information Security Risk Assessment (ISRA) is completed during project initiation, is regularly reviewed, and is signed off by accredited InfoSec Delivery Compliance Leads during delivery. Reports Security and Data Compliance breaches in a timely manner (using ReportItNow and other pertinent customer reporting outlets as applicable), informing both internal and external stakeholders.
- Manages stakeholder communications on project health, issues, and financial performance for mid-size to large deals throughout entire project lifecycle, tailoring communications to the audience. Tracks and maintains customer deliverables.
- Manages finances for projects with mid-size to large scopes and budgets by balancing funding and resources across workstreams, performing analyses, and leveraging cost management experience and expertise. Aims to reduce cost and improve delivery margin without impact to quality or customer experience and understands impact of decisions on the broader business (e.g., profits and losses [P&L], accrual-based accounting).
**Planning **
- Develops detailed project management plan to drive predictable delivery for projects of medium complexity or supports senior colleagues in projects of high complexity, leveraging existing materials and experience to drive scope, resources, and Microsoft project schedule in alignment and collaboration with customer plan. Ensures use of baselining, resource load balancing, and application of work effort, dependency management, contingency planning, and utilization of software (e.g., Timeline).
- Establishes clear expectations and accountabilities (e.g., reconfirm scope, Responsible-Accountable-Consulted-Informed matrix) with all project team members (e.g., consultants) and stakeholders for teams of medium complexity by leading internal and external kick-off meetings (e.g., sales to delivery handoff, formal kick-off meetings). Integrates security-first mindset into expectations for self and others. Proactively engages broad set of internal and external stakeholders, including those who are impacted by project scope/outcome, but not directly involved (e.g., Enterprise Operating Unit, India Global Delivery, customer stakeholders) and engages subject matter experts in holistic planning activities, including team validation.
**Presales **
- Contributes to pre-sales for medium-impact projects by articulating the business value proposition associated with the project/change and considering associated complexities and risks to ensure feasibility of commercial offer. Participates in review of proposed scope and assists in developing Statement of Work (SOW), Work Breakdown Structures (WBSs), estimates, preliminary risk assessments, etc. Ensures that ISD consulting deal appropriately includes Delivery Compliance, Privacy & Security (DCPS) package to fund Secure by Default activities.
**Relationship Development **
- Engage with customer stakeholders to develop partnerships, leveraging broad technical expertise. Manages escalations or ensures resolution of escalations with customer stakeholders through tailored corrective action (e.g., education) and overcomes ambiguous situations as needed. Learns to leverage project sponsors and internal networks to influence stakeholders and resolve situations.
- Drives customer satisfaction by engaging with customers stakeholders in a positive manner, reviewing and analyzing customer feedback, and leveraging trusted relationships with key internal resources to act as the voice of the customer. Manage expectations with political sensitivity by leading Success Expectation discussions with customers, and documenting, executing, and monitoring through customer and partner experience (CPE).
- Adheres to project compliance standards (e.g., confidentiality, privacy, security) and requirements of the contract and accommodates customer compliance standards, including managing compliance-related complexities (e.g., high sensitivity to confidentiality). Champions compliance by contributing to knowledge sharing across teams to build compliance capability of others.
**Networking Responsibilities **
- Gathers customer/partner insights from a broad range of stakeholders to shape and form both the definition and ongoing execution of networking projects.
- Defines and documents the architecture to communicate the value proposition of the business solution along with the project approach.
- Collaborates with Pillar Leads and other internal technical resources to jointly drive project/technical governance of the design, build, and deployment into use of proof of concepts and pilots.
- Works with the business sponsor and customer/partner stakeholders to gather and ratify requirements and constraints.
- Collaborate with the Account Team and/or Bid Team to understand the business solution/problem.
- Anticipates and identifies scenarios that could slow or impede pre-sales/delivery.
- Works in close collaboration with the Account Team to identify, categorize, and communicate business and technical risks.
- Generates new and/or improvements to existing delivery intellectual property.
- Develops a network of internal/external relationships with senior-level decision makers to build influence in addressing problems/blockers.
- Uses evidence-based arguments that articulate complex concepts in a simple manner to respectfully challenge Microsoft and customers/partners when a decision will not produce optimal results.
- Participates in the adoption of Microsoft solutions technologies based on understanding of competitor solutions and how customer business value can be driven through Microsoft's offerings.
- Participates in virtual teams around technologies and customer/partner challenges by sharing ideas, insight, and strategic, technical input with technical teams, internal communities across the field, and the larger virtual team across
- Microsoft using knowledge of Microsoft architecture and their context in the competitive landscape.
- Participates in external architect community events (e.g., conferences, seminars, technical meetups, Webcasts, blogs, hackathons) and shares learnings with internal team.
- Act a mentor to less experienced colleagues by educating them on delivery technical and non-technical concepts and sharing best practices.
- Demonstrates deep industry knowledge and drives recognition for Microsoft solutions through presentations and engagements with external audiences.
- Collaborate with the Account Team and/or Bid Team to understand the business solution/problem.
- Drives agreement, based on the customer’s priorities, requirements/constraints, approach, principles, concepts, and expectations.
- Participates in building and documenting a realistically costed, advanced/complex Solution Approach with traceability of requirements, constraints, decisions, and tradeoffs that balances risk, technical credibility, and technical innovation to meet customer need, predominantly based on existing solution offerings and/or reference architecture.
- Jointly leads the implementation in close partnership with the delivery team members.
- Leads oversight and governance and establishment of quality practices and standards to realize the business solution.
- Contributes to using a cohesive build methodology with an agreed release schedule and timeline so the solution can be transitioned to live operations, leveraging solution expertise.
- Ensures communication of and adherence to the pre-sales value proposition.
- Highlights where assumptions have proven false.
- Use change requests to modify the Solution/project approach when needed.
- As needed, collaborate with subject matter experts to receive specialized advice that can help define the Solution and project approach and increase the time to value for the customer.
- Works in close collaboration with the Account Team to identify, categorize, and communicate business and technical risks.
- Defines risk mitigation activities that are foundational to the project plan.
- Defines risk contingency plans for invocation should the risk occur.
- When appropriate, oversee a broad portfolio of accounts.
- Manages and ensures the all-up delivery of consulting engagements, as necessary.
- Contributes to defining and documenting the architecture through an architecture description document, an architecture decisions log, and a requirements/constraints traceability matrix to communicate the value proposition of the business solution along with the project approach.
- Contributes to complex cost-based and technology-based discussions to explain the Architecture in terms of its build, deployment, and ongoing operational use to determine customer appetite for the business solution.
- Uses a business-value approach that values return on investment (ROI) and customer costs-savings over technical ease of execution.
- Leverages a structured approach to Architecture Projects using existing methodologies (e.g., Waterfall, Agile, Iterative) that make use of existing reference architecture and established architectural styles and design patterns.
- Contributes to delivery team proposal and development of new solutions to scale across multiple customers/partners.
- Collaborates on building and maintaining an architecture description document, an architecture decisions log, and a requirements/constraints traceability matrix to ensure the rationale for the business solution's Architecture is known and understood.
- Collaborates to jointly drive project/technical governance of the design, build, and deployment into use of proof of concepts (POCs) and pilots, using enterprise architecture processes and ensuring quality control through peer review.
- Works with customers to understand and demonstrate business value (e.g., release of revenue, cost savings) that the business solution realizes.
- Anticipates and identifies scenarios that could slow or impede pre-sales/delivery.
- Orchestrates the broader Microsoft team to address technical blockers and works with account/project team to resolve non-technical issues.
- Reports significant problems to Microsoft management and resolves escalations when needed.
- Plans a way forward in complex and ambiguous situations with an innovative approach and durable design.
- Delegates and leverages specialist skills of others to drive technical alignment across internal/external teams.
- Coordinates disparate approaches into a single plan of action for complex scenarios.
- Works with the business sponsor and customer/partner stakeholders (e.g., Business users, Enterprise Architects, Security Team, Operations Team) to gather and ratify requirements and constraints.
- Manages and resolves complex ambiguity in the requirements and constraints and documents assumptions and implications where it cannot be resolved.
- Collaborates on maintaining the requirements/constraints traceability matrix to prove that solution components have a rationale/justification for inclusion in the architecture of the business solution.
- Collaborates on driving development and execution of test plans to prove that each requirement/constraint has been implemented as expected by the customer.
- Where there are defects, works in close collaboration with the delivery team and Customer to redress or accept and document the status of the test results.
- Collaborates on the adoption of Microsoft solutions technologies based on understanding of competitor solutions and how customer business value can be driven through Microsoft's offerings.
- Contributes to differentiating Microsoft's solutions in customer/partner conversations to influence the industry-wide direction for specific architecture(s).
- Develops a network of internal/external relationships with senior-level decision makers to build influence in addressing problems/blockers and facilitating additional views on the matter of interest.
- Acts as an advisor to external stakeholders.
- Provides direction to facilitate relationships between others.
- Stays up to date on Microsoft’s technologies, products, and services in order to communicate Microsoft's mission, strategy, and capabilities. When appropriate, develop a strategic relationship with key stakeholders within the customer portfolio, often as part of a steering committee, to ensure service delivery is on track and major issues are being anticipated, identified, and managed.
- Uses evidence-based arguments that articulate complex concepts in a simple manner to respectfully challenge Microsoft and customers/partners when a decision or course of action will not produce optimal results.
- Leverages strategic expertise to encourage alternative approaches where applicable.
- Proactively resolves conflicts and seeks resolution to balance the overall outcome.
- Drives consensus where possible and leads decisions to resolve conflict when needed.
Qualifications
**Required/minimum qualifications **
- Bachelor's Degree in related field AND 3+ years’ experience in project management OR equivalent experience.
**Other Requirements **
**Security Clearance Requirements: **Candidates must be able 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:
- The successful candidate must have an active U.S. Government TOP SECRET/SCI Security Clearance.
- Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role.
- Failure to maintain or obtain the appropriate clearance and/or customer screening requirements may result in employment action up to and including termination.
Clearance Verification
- This position requires successful verification of the stated security clearance to meet federal government customer requirements. You will be asked to provide clearance verification information prior to an offer of employment.
Microsoft Cloud Background Check
- This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.
**Citizenship & Citizenship Verification **
- This position requires verification of U.S. citizenship due to citizenship-based legal restrictions. Specifically, this position supports United States federal, state, and/or local United States government agency customer and is subject to certain citizenship-based restrictions where required or permitted by applicable law. To meet this legal requirement, citizenship will be verified via a valid passport, or other approved documents, or verified US government Clearance
Preferred/Additional Qualifications
- ** **Bachelor's Degree in related field AND 8+ years’ experience in project management OR equivalent experience.
- Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.
- 4+ years financial management experience.
- Agile certification, Scrum Master, Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP), or Professional Scrum Master One (PSM1) certification.
- Minimum 6 years of experience as a network engineer or technical program manager for networks.
- BS in Computer Science or related STEM discipline, or 4 years equivalent related experience.
- Experience with architecture, deployment, and/or operations of Government classified networks.
- Experience with Ansible, Splunk, and/or SolarWinds.
- Experience working with L2/L3 switching/routing platforms, application networking and network protocols to include BGP, OSPF, VRRP, LACP.
- Experience with cloud networking implementations with preferred focus on onboarding customer infrastructure to cloud.
- CCNP or higher or equivalent professional certification; CompTIA Security+ certification.
- Ability to work in a flexible, fast-paced environment.
- Highly effective communication and collaboration with customers, partners, and across teams is required.
- Excellent communication skills and team player with ability to build solid relationships at all levels, across teams, geographies, and business functions.
- Excellent judgement, decision-making skills, and the ability to work under continual deadline pressure when the situation is ambiguous.
- Experience with firewall, network security, or network monitoring solutions, including vendor platforms to include Palo Alto, Cisco Firepower/ASA, and/or Juniper SRX.
- Experience with Azure Networking, Azure Kubernetes, YAML scripting, and Bicep ARM.
- Experience with privacy encryption protocols/capabilities to include VPN, IPSec, and TLS.
- Experience with cloud or other software-defined networking implementations to include networking authentication, authorization, RBAC, compute, and databases.
- Experience with Linux and Windows experiences, with focus on shell commands and scripting.
- Experience in one or more programming languages: C#, C++, Java, Python.
- Experience in network automation using scripting languages such as Python.
Consulting Project Management IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $101,800 - $193,800 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 $126,100 - $207,600 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.**