Principal Technical Program Manager

• You will translate early-stage research from Microsoft Research and applied R&D into shippable cloud AI capabilities, shaping technical concepts into product roadmaps with researchers, driving execution with Azure engineering teams, and managing external hardware and software suppliers to land critical dependencies on time and on spec
• You will partner with MSR researchers, Azure engineering teams, and external hardware and software vendors to design technical solutions that span models, systems, and hardware. You will surface the trade-offs and risks behind those choices and make data-driven recommendations to research and engineering leads, and supplier partners
• You will define what success looks like for moving research prototypes to general availability, the technical bar, the launch criteria, and the cross-team commitments, and hold MSR, Azure, and supplier stakeholders aligned to it through every program milestone
• You will own the program structure end-to-end: roadmap, schedule, staging and rollout plans, and governance for multi-team, multi-quarter efforts that cut across MSR, Azure, and the supplier ecosystem
• You will close the loop from production back to research: validate use cases against live workloads, instrument performance and reliability metrics at cloud AI scale, and bring signal from customer engagements back to MSR and Azure teams to shape the next generation of platform investments

• Bachelor's Degree in computer engineering, electrical/electronic engineering, computer science, physics, applied physics, optics/photonics, materials science, or a related field 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

• Master's or PhD Degree in computer engineering, electrical/electronic engineering, computer science, physics, applied physics, optics/photonics, materials science, or a related field AND 6+ years experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development OR equivalent experience
• Basic understanding of optics and/or photonics, sufficient to engage with researchers and suppliers on technical trade-offs in optical systems
• Ability to operate effectively in a multi-disciplinary environment
• Knowledge of networking and interconnects broadly defined - datacenter networking, high-speed interconnects, fabrics, or related areas
• Familiarity with hardware/system simulation or modeling tools
• Effective written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to clearly communicate technical results and justify assumptions to diverse technical audiences
• Knowledge of advanced packaging, co-packaged optics, or memory hierarchies
• Experience working on research or industry projects related to AI systems design

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation