Are you an experienced product leader who thrives at the intersection of platform architecture, agentic AI, and customer-facing product? Are you energized by defining how AI agents reason over enterprise data, and by shaping the APIs and patterns that make that possible at hyperscale? If so, the Work IQ team is the place for you.
Work IQ is the semantic grounding and action layer that powers agentic experiences across Microsoft 365 and Substrate — enabling agents to reliably retrieve, reason over, and act on customer data (mail, calendar, files, chats). We're looking for a Principal PM Architect to drive the integration of Work IQ into agents and agent harnesses, own the technical feedback loop into the Work IQ engineering team, and set the long-term architectural bar for API design, sustainability, and agentic/AI development practices across Substrate and Work IQ.
This role sits at the intersection of product management, platform architecture, and applied AI, with high visibility across Substrate leadership, customer agent teams, and the Work IQ engineering org. You'll bring a balance of deep technical judgment, cross-team influence, and hands-on execution — translating customer agent needs into durable platform capabilities.
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
Drive end-to-end integration of Work IQ into Pattern 2 agents and harnesses, partnering directly with customer agent teams to unblock adoption and resolve integration gaps.
Serve as the primary technical feedback conduit from customer/agent teams into the Work IQ engineering team — triaging issues, prioritizing fixes, and closing the loop on implementation.
Own and evolve Work IQ's API structure and surface area, ensuring consistency, discoverability, and extensibility as new agent patterns and harnesses come online.
Define architectural guardrails for long-term sustainability — versioning strategy, backward compatibility, deprecation practices, and technical debt tradeoffs — so the platform scales without breaking downstream agents.
Champion agentic development practices and AI-assisted engineering (e.g., AI-authored code, agent-driven testing/validation) across both Substrate and Work IQ teams, raising the bar on velocity and quality.
Partner with architects and engineering leads across Substrate, M365 Copilot, and customer agent orgs to align on shared abstractions and avoid platform fragmentation.
Establish metrics and feedback mechanisms (reliability, latency, adoption, developer satisfaction) to measure integration health and guide prioritization.
Mentor other PMs on technical depth, API design principles, and customer-obsessed platform thinking.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor's Degree AND 10+ years experience in product/service/program management or software development
- OR equivalent experience.
- Bachelor's Degree AND 15+ years experience in product/service/program management or software development
- OR equivalent experience.
- 6+ years experience taking a product, feature, or experience to market (e.g., design, addressing product market fit, and launch, internal tool/framework).
- 8+ years experience improving product metrics for a product, feature, or experience in a market (e.g., growing customer base, expanding customer usage, avoiding customer churn).
- 8+ years experience disrupting a market for a product, feature, or experience (e.g., competitive disruption, taking the place of an established competing product).
- Demonstrated experience partnering directly with engineering teams to translate technical feedback into shipped platform improvements.
- Solid technical fluency — able to read API contracts/design docs, engage in architecture reviews, and reason about tradeoffs without being the implementing engineer.
- Experience working across team boundaries in a large, matrixed organization to drive alignment and execution.
- Experience with agentic AI systems, LLM-based agents, RAG/grounding architectures, or Copilot-style products.
- Track record designing or governing platform APIs consumed by multiple internal/external teams.
- Familiarity with AI-assisted/agentic software development workflows (e.g., Copilot, autonomous coding agents) and appetite to drive adoption.
- Experience at Microsoft or similar hyperscaler working on core platform/infrastructure serving millions of users.
- Solid written and verbal communication skills with a track record of executive-level influence.
Product Management IC6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $165,600 - $296,400 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 $220,800 - $331,200 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.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree OR equivalent experience; 10+ years experience in product/service/program management or software development
- Experience with agentic AI systems, LLM-based agents, RAG/grounding architectures, or Copilot-style products
- Track record designing or governing platform APIs consumed by multiple internal or external teams
- Demonstrated experience partnering directly with engineering teams to translate technical feedback into shipped platform improvements
- Solid technical fluency: able to read API contracts/design docs, engage in architecture reviews, and reason about tradeoffs
- Experience working across team boundaries in a large, matrixed organization to drive alignment and execution
- Experience taking products/features to market and improving product metrics (product-market fit, adoption, retention)
- Familiarity with AI-assisted/agentic software development workflows and appetite to drive adoption
- Experience at a hyperscaler or similar large platform organization (serving millions of users)
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with executive-level influence
Microsoft Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Microsoft and has not been reviewed or approved by Microsoft.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is presented as broadly competitive overall, with clear role/level/location variation and an emphasis on using posted ranges and band information for apples-to-apples comparisons.
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Retirement Support — Retirement benefits are described as a standout, highlighted by a strong 401(k) match structure and immediate vesting, plus additional plan features for tax-advantaged saving.
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Parental & Family Support — Family-oriented benefits are portrayed as a meaningful strength, with substantial paid parental leave and added supports like back-up care and adoption/surrogacy assistance.
Microsoft Insights
What We Do
At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our mission is grounded in both the world in which we live and the future we strive to create. Today, we live in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, and the transformation we are driving across our businesses is designed to enable Microsoft and our customers to thrive in this world.
