Director, Hardware Strategy and Planning

Do you want to be at the forefront of innovating the latest hardware designs to propel Microsoft’s cloud growth? Are you seeking a unique career opportunity that combines both technical capabilities, cross team collaboration, with business insight and strategy?  

Join our Strategic Planning and Architecture (SPARC) team within Microsoft’s Azure Hardware Systems & Infrastructure (AHSI) organization and be a part of the organization behind Microsoft’s expanding Cloud Infrastructure and responsible for powering Microsoft’s “Intelligent Cloud” mission. Microsoft delivers more than 200 online services to more than one billion individuals worldwide and AHSI is the team behind our expanding cloud infrastructure. We deliver the core infrastructure and foundational technologies for Microsoft's cloud businesses including Microsoft Azure, Bing, MSN, Office 365, OneDrive, Skype, Teams and Xbox Live.   

The SPARC organization manages Azure’s hardware roadmap from architecture concept through production for all of Microsoft’s current and future on-line services.  Well-defined and executed strategic planning ensures products meet the requirements for performance, features, and time-to-market. The ability to draw insights from a deep understanding of the cloud Hardware Infrastructure landscape and industry trends is critical in informing the roadmap and planning decisions. Deep technical understanding of our hardware architecture, workload modeling and analysis are necessary to making informed, data-driven decisions. Our hardware technology pathfinding work helps keep our product portfolio competitive by maturing new concepts for productization. Together these functions are able to create a strategic hardware and technology roadmap. 

As Director, Hardware Strategy and Planning, you will engage with technology providers, understand their product portfolio and roadmap, work with internal partners and strategize how new memory technology solutions intercept Azure’s hardware infrastructure roadmap. The role will involve driving future roadmap and requirements with technology providers that enable the growth of the Azure cloud business and give it a competitive edge over other cloud service providers. 

Join our SPARC team and be a part of the world’s fastest growing cloud service! 

• Work with memory and SoC technology providers, understand their portfolios, partner with engineering and business groups and drive a competitive and executable hardware roadmap strategy for Azure hardware infrastructure. 
• Deep dive into memory vendors’ technology offerings, quantitively compare technology options and produce recommendations and strategies that give a unique edge to Azure hardware infrastructure. 
• Partner with business units and engineering team members to gather and define future requirements, server design objectives and business goals.
• Perform roadmap scenario modeling, financial modeling, and market analysis for the recommended HW platform factoring in performance, features, cost, and time-to-market tradeoffs.
• Explore and evaluate new technologies and how they can be leveraged to meet product requirements. 
• Partner with engineering teams and drive strategy and plans to intercept new technologies into cloud scale fleet.
• Recommend internal and external process improvements and excellence conversations cross- functionally to ensure we have optimized processes and aligned across partner teams.
• Create, maintain and effectively disseminate project communication to stakeholders.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree AND 8+ years experience in product/service/program management Or Hardware Project Management OR equivalent 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:

• Minimum BS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering or similar field/experience. 
• 10+ years industry experience in CPU, Memory or server technology development.
• Knowledge of memory subsystem architecture.
• Knowledge of memory technology, roadmap and industry trends.
• Knowledge of cloud server technology or system architecture.
• Proven customer obsession in prior roles where customer requirements were gathered and implemented into a product.
• Product Planning or Project Management experience is desired.
• Proven capabilities to drive positive business results by working across multiple organizations.
• Effective presentation skills with the ability to present to a wide range of cross functional partners across different teams and levels of the organization.
• Ability to build relationships and influence in a matrix organization.
• Highly effective written and oral communication skills.
• Self-motivated, driven individual who can work in a rapidly changing environment.
• Familiarity and previous experience developing programs through phase gate process is preferred.

Product Management IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 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 $188,000 - $304,200 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.