Data Center Operations Specialist Jobs

Microsoft's Cloud Operations & Innovation (CO+I) is the engine that powers our cloud services. It delivers the core infrastructure and foundational technologies for Microsoft's online services, including Bing, Microsoft 365, Xbox, OneDrive and the Microsoft Azure platform. Our infrastructure is a global portfolio of more than 200 datacenters in 32 countries and millions of servers. It supports more than 1 billion customers and 20 million businesses in over 90 countries.

Reporting to the Charlotte Metro Director, the Director of Datacenter IT Operations is the senior IT Operations leader for the Charlotte Metro. This leader owns end-to-end IT operations, IT outfitting and IT infrastructure delivery across all Class A and Class B datacenter facilities in the metro. That organization is accountable for safe, secure, on-time and defect-free delivery of customer capacity, and for reliable, SLA-compliant operation of IT infrastructure once it is live.

The role covers the full IT lifecycle. That starts with design input and construction coordination, continues through IT outfitting, network and server deployment, operational readiness and turnover, and extends into steady-state operations, hardware lifecycle management and decommissioning. The Director partners closely with Critical Environment (CE), IAM/Logistics, Datacenter Delivery (DCD), Datacenter Engineering (DCE), Commissioning, network and hardware engineering teams, and vendors. Together they ensure IT requirements are built in from the start and that Operations is ready to take ownership on Day 1.

Success in this role requires strong organizational leadership, disciplined service management, financial acumen, and the ability to turn technical and operational risk into clear, decision-ready recommendations for metro, regional and CO+I leadership. With environmental sustainability and optimization at the forefront of our datacenter design and operations, we continue to grow and evolve to meet the business demands that make Microsoft a world-class cloud provider.

Do you want to empower billions across the world? Come and join us in CO+I and be at the forefront of the action!

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  Organizational Leadership and People Management

  • Build, lead, coach and develop the Charlotte Metro IT Operations organization, including Datacenter Technician Managers, Datacenter Program Managers and Datacenter Technicians across all Class A and Class B facilities.
  • Deliver success through empowerment and accountability by modeling, coaching and caring. Live our culture, embody our values and practice our leadership principles.
  • Set the IT organization's strategy, priorities, operating rhythm, performance expectations and long-term capability roadmap in line with metro and CO+I priorities.
  • Lead IT workforce, capacity and succession planning across the metro. Allocate resources across campuses and sites based on business priority, infrastructure complexity, operational risk and future demand.
  • Attract, hire and retain great people. Know everyone's capabilities and aspirations, invest in the growth of others, and develop the next generation of leaders through intentional delegation and succession planning.
  • Make sure teams complete required training and certifications. Partner with Learning & Development to evolve the training portfolio as technology and site requirements change.
  • Recognize team successes and reward teamwork while keeping the culture focused on strategic goals.

  2. IT Operations and Service Delivery

  • Own end-to-end service compliance, quality and client satisfaction for all IT services in the metro, against agreed SLAs, OLAs, KPIs and OKRs.
  • Oversee all IT operations activity, including server and rack deployment, network turn-up, structured cabling, break-fix and hardware repair, asset tracking, decommissions, and secure media handling and destruction.
  • Apply deep subject-matter expertise and escalate as needed to meet SLA/OLA commitments with minimal disruption to customers and the business. Review metrics with leaders so everyone understands targets and current performance.
  • Manage relationships with internal clients and service-line partners so expectations are clear and understood, and deliver solutions with a strong customer focus.
  • Understand future business demand in each facility so that IT staffing, tooling, spares and resources keep pace with growth.
  • Share common and recurring issues with regional and global teams, and promote best practices that prevent recurrence and make resolution more efficient.

  3. IT Outfitting, Capacity Delivery and Operational Readiness

  • Own IT outfitting and infrastructure delivery for new builds, expansions, retrofits and live-site changes across all Class A and Class B facilities in the metro.
  • Make sure IT requirements are built into infrastructure designs and formal design reviews, including network, structured cabling, rack/enclosure layouts, power distribution to IT, maintainability, security and supportability.
  • Keep IT Operations engaged throughout construction and commissioning, including quality reviews, readiness assessments, commissioning participation and resolution of IT concerns before turnover.
  • Make sure documentation, procedures, spares, tooling, systems access, training and operational dependencies are in place before operational acceptance, so IT teams can safely and effectively take ownership on Day 1.
  • Support Go/No-Go and readiness decisions with clear, data-driven assessments of IT infrastructure and operational risk.
  • Ensure on-time, defect-free delivery of customer capacity within SLA commitments. Govern post-turnover stabilization, early-life performance and defect resolution.
  • Plan with business partners when carrying out their requirements so that datacenter availability, safety and security are maintained.

  4. Incident Management, Reliability and Risk

  • Serve as the senior IT escalation point for the metro. Take part in, and lead where appropriate, every Sev 1 and Sev 2 incident bridge affecting Microsoft cloud services in Charlotte, including communication with customers and senior leadership.
  • Approve root-cause analyses and postmortem reports, and drive improvement plans and corrective and preventive actions to completion.
  • Prevent IT infrastructure and operational risk before it affects safety, security, availability, capacity delivery, cost or schedule, or creates long-term technical debt.
  • Use incident trends, hardware failure data, commissioning findings and field experience to find systemic risks. Partner with engineering, OEMs and vendors to resolve them.
  • Make sure IT work in live environments goes through rigorous change management, including risk assessment, Method of Procedure (MOP) and Emergency Operating Procedure (EOP) review, and maintenance-window planning, to protect customer availability.
  • Own the metro IT risk register and make sure risks, dependencies and ownership gaps are tracked, escalated and closed.

  5. Financial and Vendor Management

  • Own the metro IT Operations budget, including detailed budgets, forecasts, and management of operating and capital spend. Make tradeoff decisions that follow sound fiscal practices.
  • Lead budget planning and demand-cost forecasting. Make sure business leaders understand how service-management issues affect cost, risk and staffing, and negotiate for the resources the organization needs.
  • Manage and oversee IT vendor and partner contracts and relationships, including IT service providers, contracted labor, OEMs and partner support teams. For leased facilities, coordinate with landlords and their operators on IT-related requirements.
  • Hold vendors accountable for performance, quality and commercial results, and recommend extra funding or resources for pilots, task forces or growth where needed.

  6. Governance, Metrics and Executive Communication

  • Establish consistent IT Operations governance across the metro, with clear decision rights, escalation paths, response expectations and accountability.
  • Set and monitor meaningful KPIs. Examples include SLA attainment, on-time capacity delivery, readiness milestone completion, incident and repair turnaround, issue aging, turnover defect trends, asset accuracy, safety performance and cost efficiency.
  • Give the Metro Director and regional leadership concise reports on IT portfolio health, readiness, schedule, financial performance, risk and key decisions.
  • Translate complex technical and operational issues into clear, decision-ready information for senior leadership.
  • Represent IT Operations in metro, regional and CO+I leadership forums, design reviews and readiness governance.

  7. Cross-Functional Partnership and One Microsoft

  • Serve as the single point of IT Operations integration for the metro across CE, IAM/Logistics, DCD, DCE, Commissioning, Physical Security, Environment Health & Safety, network and hardware engineering, and global and regional teams.
  • Partner with the Metro Director and peer functional leaders to align metro priorities, coordinate cross-campus planning, manage dependencies and resolve ownership gaps.
  • Find opportunities to collaborate across groups, make sure cross-team commitments are set, and achieve scale by enabling the work of others.
  • Support global and regional initiatives such as environmental health and safety programs, risk assessments, audits, compliance and certifications.
  • Act as a trusted advisor to a wide network of colleagues and bring diverse viewpoints together to solve organization-wide problems.

  8. Safety, Security, Culture and Ownership

  • Build a culture of safety, security, quality, compliance and customer obsession in every part of IT operations.
  • Follow the runbooks provided by the Environment, Health & Safety division, and report any safety or security issue or concern immediately.
  • Take pride and personal accountability for end-to-end service quality, completeness and the resulting customer experience. Find unaddressed issues and resolve them, escalate them, or find the right owner.
  • Remove barriers to agility so teams can shift priorities quickly without losing productivity.
  • Learn, live and coach the One Microsoft culture and values. Lead through change by bringing clarity, generating energy and delivering success.

Required Qualifications

• High School Qualification or equivalent AND 10+ years experience of mission-critical service management (e.g., providing IT services, manufacturing, warehouse, retail, military, or managing physical operations in an IT and/or critical environment infrastructure)
  • OR equivalent experience
• 3+ years people management 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

• 7+ years' enterprise-level experience managing large scale and complex projects/programs AND 7+ years' experience in Critical Environment infrastructures (e.g., UPS, Generator, AHU) AND 7+ years' experience in physical IT infrastructures (e.g., Servers, SANs, Networking, Capacity, DC Rack/Enclosures, structured cabling) AND Experience managing budget $5M+.
• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Math, Telecommunications, Electrical/Mechanical Engineering, Supply Chain Management or related field.
• 7+ years' experience leading diverse, technical workforce OR 10+ years' experience managing global and virtual teams.
• Applicable certifications: ASICS/Inventory Control, CompTIA, Microsoft, Network Certifications, CCNA Certifications, ITIL v3 Foundation, Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) Certifications, Leadership Development Certifications, PMP, CDCP.

Data Center Operations Management M6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $140,200 - $284,400 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 $185,600 - $312,000 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.