Overview

Cloud Operations + Innovation (CO+I) is the team behind one of the world's largest cloud infrastructures, responsible for powering Microsoft's online products and services and enabling its Cloud First mission. Our focus is on smart growth, high efficiency, and delivering a trusted experience to customers and partners worldwide.

This role sits within a high-impact team accountable for shaping and delivering complex solutions across APAC Data Centre capacity delivery, with a strong focus on new-build and construction-led programs. The Senior Solutions Manager owns ambiguous, multi-workstream problem spaces from discovery through implementation, translating business, engineering, construction and operational requirements into scalable solutions that improve delivery predictability, readiness, quality and business outcomes.

Operating with a high degree of independence, the role leads through influence across sub-regional stakeholders and multiple functional domains. It establishes governance, evaluates trade-offs, resolves cross-team dependencies and drives decisions where scope, ownership or requirements are not yet clear. The role is expected to optimise delivery outcomes, create reusable approaches and provide trusted recommendations to functional leaders and senior stakeholders without formal people-management accountability.

Responsibilities:

Structured Discovery & Intake
Lead discovery for complex, ambiguous or cross-functional problem spaces, independently framing the business need, delivery context and desired outcomes.
Define problem statements, scope boundaries, assumptions, constraints, dependencies, decision rights, success measures and acceptance criteria.
Engage engineering, construction, commercial, supply chain, integration, operations and business stakeholders to identify constraints, dependencies and readiness requirements.
Convert insights into prioritised solution roadmaps, governance models and executable delivery plans spanning multiple workstreams.
Assess organisational, process, data and stakeholder impacts across multiple functions and identify barriers to adoption.
Build alignment around common objectives, decision frameworks and success measures across diverse stakeholder groups.

Solution Design & Delivery
Own end-to-end solution design and delivery for complex initiatives, from option development and feasibility assessment through implementation, adoption and benefits realisation.
Develop structured options with clear recommendations, assessing schedule, cost, quality, capacity, constructability, operational readiness and implementation risk.
Establish delivery strategy, milestones, owners, decision points and governance cadence intervene early when execution deviates from plan.
Optimise outcomes across multiple projects or domains by balancing local requirements with scalable regional standards and long-term maintainability.
Lead reviews and lessons learned, converting insights into reusable playbooks, controls and improvements.

Stakeholder Engagement & Communication
Build trusted relationships with regional leaders, functional managers, engineering leads, delivery teams and subject-matter experts.
Influence decisions without formal authority, resolving conflicting priorities and creating alignment across geographically dispersed teams.
Deliver concise, decision-ready narratives, dashboards, status reviews and recommendations tailored to executive, technical and delivery audiences.
Facilitate complex working sessions and governance forums, ensuring decisions, actions and accountabilities are explicit.
Represent in senior stakeholder reviews, communicating material risks, trade-offs, dependencies and required interventions.
Develop stakeholder engagement and change adoption strategies that build commitment, drive behavioural change and sustain long-term outcomes.
Create alignment across organisations with differing priorities, processes and perspectives while maintaining momentum toward shared objective.

Risk, Issues & Dependency Management
Own risk, issue and dependency management across a portfolio of related initiatives and workstreams.
Anticipate systemic and cascading impacts across engineering, construction, supply chain, commercial, network and operational readiness pathways.
Develop mitigation, contingency and recovery options, with clear analysis of business impact and decision timing.
Escalate with context, evidence and a recommended path forward drive closure of decisions and accountable actions.

Process & Quality Enablement
Identify systemic gaps through analysis and lead sustainable improvements that increase predictability, quality and speed of capacity delivery.
Define process ownership, control points, measures and governance required to sustain adoption.
Share practices across metros and functions, scaling successful approaches beyond the originating initiative.
Design and embed standard processes, operating models, information frameworks and ways of working that improve consistency, transparency and decision quality across the data centre capacity delivery portfolio
Lead cross-functional transformation initiatives that simplify processes, reduce duplication and improve organisational effectiveness across teams and functions.

Tooling & Automation
Define product and business requirements for delivery platforms, templates, workflows and automation capabilities.
Partner with tooling, analytics and engineering teams to prioritise enhancements, validate solutions and drive adoption.
Identify opportunities to reduce manual effort, improve data quality and create scalable self-service capability through automation and AI-enabled workflows.

Analytics & Reporting
Establish outcome-based KPIs and leading indicators that measure delivery health, adoption and realised value.
Synthesise data from multiple sources into trends, scenarios and actionable recommendations for senior decision-makers.
Drive data quality, common definitions and reporting discipline across the portfolio.

Governance & Compliance
Establish fit-for-purpose governance that enables timely decisions, accountable execution and transparent portfolio health.
Ensure solution design, data handling, reporting and tooling align with Microsoft security, compliance, safety and quality requirements.
Maintain clear decision, risk and change records appropriate to the scale and sensitivity of the initiative.
Establish common definitions, information standards and decision-support frameworks that improve consistency, transparency and trust in business reporting and communications.
Drive alignment on authoritative data sources, reporting principles and governance mechanisms to support informed decision-making

Core Behaviours & Characteristics
Demonstrated end-to-end ownership of complex programs, with strong judgment and accountability for outcomes.
Comfortable creating clarity and direction where requirements, ownership or data are incomplete.
Balances strategic context with execution detail and makes disciplined trade-offs across competing priorities.
Communicates credibly with senior, technical and operational stakeholders and can challenge constructively.
Leads through influence, builds durable partnerships and supports the capability growth of peers and less-experienced team members.
Demonstrates Microsoft cultural attributes: Create Clarity, Generate Energy, Deliver Success.

Qualifications:

Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, Construction Management, Information Systems or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
4+ years of technical program, project management or continuous improvement experience, including ownership of cross-functional initiatives from discovery through delivery.
2+ years of experience managing cross-team dependencies, risks, governance and stakeholder alignment in a technical, engineering, infrastructure or construction environment.
Demonstrated ability to structure ambiguous problems, evaluate trade-offs and translate complex requirements into clear recommendations and executable plans.
Strong written, verbal and visual communication skills, with experience presenting risks, options and recommendations to senior stakeholders.
Experience using data and operational measures to guide decisions, monitor outcomes and drive continuous improvement.

While not required, we also look for the following Preferred Qualifications:

Experience delivering data centre, mission-critical infrastructure, construction, network or cloud-capacity programs across multiple projects or locations.
Knowledge of data centre build phases from planning and design through construction, commissioning, integration, turnover and operational readiness.
Experience with program management methodologies and organisational change, process improvement or benefits-realisation practices professional certification such as PMP, PRINCE2, Lean or Agile is advantageous.
Experience with portfolio reporting and analytics tools such as Excel, Power BI or equivalent platforms.
Track record of developing reusable standards, playbooks or automation solutions and coaching others in their adoption.
Understanding of commercial, schedule, quality, safety and compliance considerations in infrastructure delivery.

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.

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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.

APAC E2E Senior Solutions Manager