Principal Project Manager

Microsoft is on a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. Growth mindset encourages each of us to lean in and learn what matters most to our customers, to create the foundational knowledge that enables us to make customer-first decisions in everything we do. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world.

• Bachelor's Degree in related field AND 12+ years experience in consulting/professional services delivery, project management, or leading portfolio management, complex programs, or revenue-driven programs more than USD $5mil, strong pre-sales and proposal delivery experience

• OR equivalent experience

• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification
• 6+ years consulting, professional services, or related financial management experience (e.g., cost management, revenue forecasting)
• Agile certification, Scrum Master, Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP), or Professional Scrum Master One (PSM1) certification
• Certification in relevant industry or in Public sector

Intellectual Property

• 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.

Relationship Development

• Engages with senior internal and external stakeholders (e.g., Chief Executive-level executives) as a peer with subject matter expertise. Prevents and manages escalated situations through strategic and targeted communications with senior stakeholders and delivers difficult messages as needed. Establishes governance to influence customer decision making and diffuses situations in escalations as needed.
• Drives customer satisfaction by representing Microsoft to senior customer stakeholders (e.g., Chief Executive-level), reviewing and analyzing customer feedback, and leveraging trusted relationships with senior internal resources to act as the voice of the customer and ensure resolution of challenged deliveries. Manages expectations with a high level of political sensitivity by anticipating customer reactions, interpreting small signals, and taking proactive steps accordingly.
• Adheres to project compliance standards (e.g., confidentiality, privacy) 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.

Initiation

• Drives project initiation for projects of high complexity (e.g., tailored offerings, high visibility, high impact, market making) by driving commitment of delivery resources, assigning resources across workstreams, and creating complex work breakdown structures (WBSs) with delivery team.
• Balances needs across projects in challenging situations (e.g., scarce technical resources) and collaborates with other groups (e.g., Independent Software Vendors, India Global Delivery) on integrated planning and organization of onshore/offshore projects.

Contracting

• Leads contracting process for partner resources (e.g., contractors, vendors) by briefing partners, coordinating partner candidate interviews, and identifying and acclimating partner resources to the team. Negotiates and structures fixed-fee subcontractor contracts.

Presales

• Leads pre-sales process for high-impact projects by articulating the business value proposition associated with the project/change, evaluating associated complexities and risks to ensure feasibility of commercial offer, and reviewing work of peers for quality. Participates in review of proposed scope and assists in developing Statement of Work (SOW), Work Breakdown Structures (WBSs), estimates, preliminary risk assessments, etc.

Planning

• Develops detailed project management plan to drive predictable delivery for large and/or complex projects, leveraging expertise 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, as well as other Consulting Project Managers, for teams of high complexity by leading internal and external kick-off meetings (e.g., sales to delivery handoff, formal kick-off meetings); may act as a lead project manager. 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.

Monitoring and Controlling

• Orchestrates and oversees a broad range of project metrics on large, complex projects with high visibility (e.g., Vice President-level) through others. Proactively ensures adherence to key performance indicators (KPIs) and provides strategic direction to drive success and adapts to high-impact changes throughout project lifecycle.
• Proactively manages risks and issues within and across large, complex projects leveraging previous experience and subject matter expertise to evaluate trends in risks and optimize mitigation strategies across projects using qualitative analyses (e.g., probability, impact, urgency) mitigation plan for high impact/probability risks. Leads recoveries and engages in resolving escalations across other projects and ensures tools are updated. Manages issue closure as a high priority and utilizes contingency planning to proactively respond when risks become issues.
• Ensures timely completion and quality of deliverables (e.g., documents) and tracking of agreed upon metrics for large, complex projects by applying quality management techniques for collecting data (e.g., benchmarking, interviews), monitoring output and implementing corrective action while proactively ensuring time and resources needed to mitigate quality risks. Manages Conditions of Satisfaction (COSs) to create required deliverables. Contributes across projects to provide peer guidance where needed. Discusses and confirms customer change control at kickoff, anticipates changes and proactively addresses by probing to ensure change can happen smoothly early in the process, tests process before initiating formal change.
• Discusses and confirms customer change control at kickoff, anticipates changes and proactively addresses by probing to ensure change can happen smoothly early in the process, tests process before initiating formal change.
• Manages finances for projects with large scopes and budgets by balancing funding and resources across workstreams, performing deep analyses, and leveraging Conditions of Satisfaction (COSs) management experience and expertise. Proactively 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).
• Manages communications with senior stakeholders on project health, issues, and financial performance for large and/or complex deals throughout entire project lifecycle, tailoring communications to the audience, anticipating stakeholder requirements and adapting the plan accordingly. Establishes formal rhythms to ensure tracking and maintenance of customer deliverables and collect and report status with all important stakeholders.

Closure

• 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 broadly sharing lessons learned (e.g., leading transformative projects, sharing stories with executives, developing case studies). Creates and suggests improvements to intellectual property (IP), provides feedback to managers on team member performance, and conducts closeout interviews with team members.
• Contributes across domains, regions and/or world-wide levels to share knowledge, support others (e.g., Ready), and impact industry. Drives development and delivery of readiness programs (e.g., workshops, conferences).

Other

• Embody our culture and values

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

• Industry leading healthcare
• Educational resources
• Discounts on products and services
• Savings and investments
• Maternity and paternity leave
• Generous time away
• Giving programs
• Opportunities to network and connect

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, s ex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.