Technical Program Manager - Pretraining Data

At Microsoft AI, we are building frontier models and products that reach millions of people, from pretraining through post-training, evaluation, and launch. Our Technical Program Managers are a centralized team, embedded deeply with the research, product, and engineering stakeholders they support.

For this role, we're looking for a Technical Program Manager to help drive the data programs that power our large-scale AI model pretraining efforts. You'll partner closely with research and engineering teams to ensure that data release readiness stays on track across multiple concurrent workstreams feeding into high-stakes model training milestones.

This is a highly cross-functional role for someone who thrives on bringing structure to ambiguous, fast-moving technical programs and who can operate independently to keep complex efforts moving forward.

What you'll do

• Own end-to-end program execution across multiple parallel data workstreams, tracking decisions, dependencies, and action items to closure, proactively identifying and escalating program risks.
• Drive readiness for major data and model releases, coordinating quality checks, approvals, and sign-offs across contributing teams.
• Actively participate in planning and stakeholder management with engineering and research teams — building the relationships and partnerships needed to understand dependencies, track them closely, and translate technical discussion into clear decisions, owners, and concrete plans of execution.
• Communicate program status, risks, and trade-offs clearly to leadership and stakeholders, tailoring the level of detail to the audience and surfacing recommendations, not just updates.
• Build and continuously improve the operational structure behind these programs — processes, tracking mechanisms, and reviews that bring repeatability to otherwise ambiguous, fast-moving work.
• Bring a deep commitment to legal and compliance considerations in data usage and licensing, maintaining an evolving awareness of the relevant policy landscape so you can engage effectively with legal and compliance partners as needed.
• Stay closely attuned to the competitive landscape and the broader AI industry, bringing that outside context into program priorities, risk assessment, and planning discussions.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of technical program or product management experience in a fast-paced technical organization.
• A track record of successfully managing multiple complex, interdependent workstreams simultaneously.
• Strong technical fluency — comfortable engaging with engineers and researchers on data pipelines, systems, or infrastructure topics without needing to be an expert practitioner.
• A scrappy, bias-for-action approach to problem-solving — comfortable finding pragmatic paths forward and unblocking progress without waiting for perfect information or a fully-defined process.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to synthesize complex, distributed information into clear, actionable guidance.
• Demonstrated ability to build trust and influence outcomes across teams without direct authority.
• Experience operating with a high degree of autonomy in ambiguous, rapidly evolving environments.

Technical Program Management IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800 - $234,700 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 $160,200 - $261,000 per year.