The Capacity, Supply Chain and Provisioning organization is the group that plans, builds, deploys, and operates the cloud infrastructure for all Microsoft online services and responsible for powering Microsoft’s “Cloud First” mission. The infrastructure group is responsible for powering some of the world’s largest online services across Azure, Office, Bing, Windows, Xbox, etc. including over 200 Microsoft web portals, Live and Online Services around the world with our servers, storage, networking, and datacenter infrastructure.

This is a terrific opportunity in the Microsoft Cloud Capacity Planning team.  Within Capacity Planning, the Storage Capacity Planning team is responsible for effective collaboration with our Cloud Services development partners, deeply understanding business goals, helping translate those needs into useful signals that inform long- mid- and short-term capacity plans, and providing consumable feedback signals that help inform future plans and goals. We are looking for a seasoned demand and capacity planning leader with strong partner management skills, insight, and supply chain knowledge, forecasting and planning experience, and executive presence to transform the relationships with our partners from meeting their stated requirements to meeting their needs while optimizing the efficiency of our Cloud offering.

If you want to have a fundamental impact on how Microsoft’s Cloud is managed and operated globally, want to be involved with one of the most strategically important teams at Microsoft and be part of a paradigm shift; If creativity, leadership, strong business, and technical acumen and out of the box thinking are some of the skills you bring to the table - this job is for you.

Responsibilities

This is a key role that leads plan development and engagement, while impacting customer capacity availability and the bottom-line cost.    Azure Storage is a foundational and rapidly growing business with an impact across most service offerings at Microsoft.  

There are three key areas to this role

Developing, balancing, and optimizing a forecast in customer units and capacity plan in hardware units across several Storage offerings.

Building and managing a team of forecasters and planners to drive people, process, and tool maturity for scale

Engaging and partnering with a wide set of stakeholders including Software engineering, Finance, Supply Planning and Sourcing, and New Product Introduction teams to inform and influence, while delivering and balancing key measures such as plan accuracy, optimality, availability, and quality.

With high visibility and impact, as a Principal PM leader, this role helps ensure alignment in delivering capacity to our customers at the right cost.  The cloud space is growing rapidly and evolving at a huge pace.  This role is key to develop and drive new capabilities for hyperscale into our planning and engineering groups.

Job Responsibilities

Lead team to develop customer demand forecasts through a robust blend of technical and collaborative processes.

Develop a capacity plan that meets customer needs, while also incorporating hardware and software roadmaps, buffer, and maintaining compliance to supply and execution policies, throughput capacities and contractual requirements.

Provide a clear and prioritized demand signal to the end-to-end execution teams while optimizing the plan for availability, fidelity, and cost.

Provide thought leadership, coaching, and development for team members in all aspects of forecasting, planning, and stakeholder engagement.

Build and develop a cohesive, diverse, and high performing planning team that embodies Microsoft’s culture

Own the relationship with the supply chain and execution team. Set flexibility and throughput targets, while also comprehending and incorporating their capabilities and constraints

Liaison with the hardware development organization to ensure SKU development and hardware roadmaps meet the business need by dates

Partner with software engineering, supply chain, finance, data center operations, cloud server hardware, IBP, and networking teams to ensure all functions act in alignment with common goals

Envision and drive core measures as outputs from the group, as well as key input measures from other teams

Apply advanced analytics concepts toward rich insights and key financial and strategic decisions

Qualifications

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in supply chain, data science, related product/technology, business administration or engineering field

10+ years for broad and deep product / supply chain / business planning experience

6+ years of forecasting experience

Preferred Skills and Qualifications

Master’s degree or equivalent in supply chain, Data Science, related product/technology, business administration or engineering field

Leadership: Be an expert at leading cross-functional teams on complex projects with many variables.

Generating clarity: This is one of the most important aspects of what we do. Our job is to align everyone on the same plan and keep them there. This requires constant communication and diligence to squash any ambiguity.  

People management: Have a track record of building and managing high performing teams. People are our most critical asset.

Supply Chain Expertise: Experience demand planning, supply planning, forecasting, designing, or analyzing supply chain challenges. This role is leading new capabilities for our organization

BI, Metrics and Analytics: Able to identify themes and learnings out of data. Define the essence of a function and measure its success.  Provide KPI that are clear to understand and can drive decision making.

Results: A doer who can span from strategic thinking to getting stuff done and consistently delivering. Ultimately ensuring capacity availability at the right cost and minimal surprises or churn.

Communications and Influencing: Build relationships and influence people - from execs to individuals, across business and technical disciplines. Be equally adept at leading cross-functional meetings or building rapport and personal connection in 1:1 conversation.

Collaboration: Excellent collaboration and partnering skills are essential. Great collaborators aren’t just easy to work with - they also raise tough questions, challenge others as necessary and negotiate win/win solutions.

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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.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.  We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.