M

Microsoft

Builds workplace software, PCs and cloud services

Networking Project Manager

Full-TimeUpdated on 10/23/2026
$77.9k - $169.2k/yr
Mid, Senior
Bachelor's
Springfield, VA, USA
In Person
Project & Program ManagementProject Management
No H1B Sponsorship
US Citizenship, US Top Secret Clearance Required

About the job

Requirements
  • A bachelor's degree in a related field and 3 or more years of project management experience, or equivalent experience.
  • Be able to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements, including holding an active U.S. Government Top Secret/SCI security clearance.
  • Pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.
  • Have a bachelor's degree in a related field and 8 or more years of project management experience, or equivalent experience, preferred.
  • Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is preferred.
  • Four or more years of financial management experience is preferred.
  • Agile certification, Scrum Master certification, Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP), or Professional Scrum Master One (PSM1) certification is preferred.
  • At least six years of experience as a network engineer or technical program manager for networks is preferred.
  • A bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related STEM discipline, or four years of equivalent related experience, is preferred.
  • Experience with architecture, deployment, or operations of government classified networks is preferred.
  • Experience with Ansible, Splunk, or SolarWinds is preferred.
  • Experience with Layer 2/Layer 3 switching and routing platforms, application networking, and network protocols including BGP, OSPF, VRRP, and LACP is preferred.
  • Experience with cloud networking implementations, preferably onboarding customer infrastructure to cloud, is preferred.
  • CCNP or higher, or equivalent professional certification, and CompTIA Security+ certification are preferred.
  • Experience with firewall, network security, or network monitoring solutions, including Palo Alto, Cisco Firepower/ASA, or Juniper SRX, is preferred.
  • Experience with Azure Networking, Azure Kubernetes, YAML scripting, and Bicep ARM is preferred.
  • Experience with privacy encryption protocols or capabilities including VPN, IPSec, and TLS is preferred.
  • Experience with cloud or other software-defined networking implementations, including networking authentication, authorization, role-based access control (RBAC), compute, and databases, is preferred.
  • Experience with Linux and Windows, especially shell commands and scripting, is preferred.
  • Experience in one or more programming languages, including C#, C++, Java, or Python, is preferred.
  • Experience in network automation using scripting languages such as Python is preferred.
  • Ability to work in a flexible, fast-paced environment is preferred.
  • Effective communication and collaboration with customers, partners, and across teams is preferred.
  • Excellent judgment, decision-making, and ability to work under continual deadline pressure in ambiguous situations are preferred.
Responsibilities
  • Engage customer stakeholders to develop partnerships, drive customer satisfaction, analyze feedback, and represent the voice of the customer through relationships with internal resources.
  • Adhere to project, contract, customer, security, privacy, and confidentiality compliance standards.
  • Drive project initiation and deliver workstreams for medium-complexity projects or support high-complexity projects; commit and assign delivery resources, source and qualify partners, create work breakdown structures, and finalize Secure Future Initiative processes with teams and customers.
  • Facilitate contracting for customer and partner resources, brief partners, coordinate candidate interviews, acclimate partner resources, support subcontract negotiations, and monitor amendments, delivery acceptance, proof of delivery, and invoicing.
  • Develop project management plans, schedules, resource plans, baselines, work effort, dependencies, contingencies, and utilization plans in alignment with customer plans.
  • Set expectations and accountabilities with project teams and stakeholders, lead kickoff meetings, engage stakeholders and subject matter experts, and integrate a security-first mindset into planning.
  • Monitor project metrics, key performance indicators, risks, issues, security risks, deliverable quality, timelines, and customer commitments; establish mitigation and contingency plans and ensure required risk assessments and breach reports are completed.
  • Manage stakeholder communications, project health, issues, financial performance, customer deliverables, project budgets, forecasts, costs, and delivery margins.
  • Drive timely project closure, complete sign-off tasks, update closeout systems, delete customer data, obtain deliverable acceptance, share lessons learned, improve processes and intellectual property, and conduct closeout interviews with team members.
  • Contribute to account delivery, customer consumption, contract setup and execution, project financial health, forecasting, backlog risk management, business growth, proposals, and presales activities.
  • Gather customer and partner insights, requirements, and constraints; define and document solution architecture, solution approaches, decisions, assumptions, and traceability matrices.
  • Collaborate with account, bid, pillar, delivery, and technical teams to govern solution design, build, deployment, proofs of concept, pilots, testing, and transition to live operations.
  • Identify, communicate, and mitigate business, technical, delivery, and security risks; resolve blockers, issues, escalations, and complex ambiguity with customers and internal teams.
  • Develop and improve delivery intellectual property; share knowledge and encourage reuse of appropriate processes and artifacts.
  • Participate in customer and internal steering committees, project governance, presales reviews, solution proposals, and discussions of business value, costs, risks, and technical feasibility.
  • Support adoption of Microsoft solutions by explaining customer business value and relevant competitive solutions; communicate Microsoft's technologies, products, services, mission, strategy, and capabilities.
  • Build relationships with customer and partner decision-makers, advise external stakeholders, influence decisions, resolve conflicts, and drive consensus.
  • Mentor less experienced colleagues and share technical and non-technical delivery practices.
  • Participate in external architecture community events and share relevant learning with internal teams.
  • Coordinate disparate technical approaches into a single plan, delegate specialist work, and jointly lead implementation with delivery team members.
Desired Qualifications
  • Ability to work in a flexible, fast-paced environment.
  • Highly effective communication and collaboration with customers, partners, and across teams.
  • Excellent communication and relationship-building skills across teams, geographies, and business functions.

About the company

Microsoft builds workplace software, operating systems and cloud infrastructure for consumers, businesses and government agencies, from small organizations to global enterprises. Microsoft 365 combines Word and Excel with Teams communication and Copilot AI features, while Windows runs PCs and Surface supplies the company's own computers. Azure rents computing capacity, storage and databases to build and run web applications. Microsoft also sells Xbox consoles and games, collecting revenue through software licenses, subscriptions, usage charges and product sales. Founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Microsoft is headquartered in Redmond, Washington.

Company Size

10,001+

Company Stage

IPO

Headquarters

Redmond, Washington

Founded

1975

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • US corporate staff receive education support: eligible, approved graduate coursework qualifies for up to $10,000 annually.
  • Cloud demand expands: July 2026 results showed Azure and other cloud services revenue grew 43% year-over-year in fiscal Q4.
  • Investment has an earnings cushion: July 2026 results reported $155.2 billion consolidated operating profit for fiscal 2026.

What critics are saying

  • Performance reviews include security: every Microsoft employee must discuss their security contribution with their manager.
  • Office flexibility depends on the role: Microsoft's postings specify requirements ranging from fully remote to fully on-site.
  • Cloud capacity faces local limits: Microsoft describes power-grid delays and water constraints affecting US datacenter expansion.

What makes Microsoft unique

  • Hybrid customers stay within reach: Azure Arc manages servers across customer datacenters and competing clouds.
  • Developer reach extends beyond Azure: Microsoft's GitHub hosts code collaboration alongside AI coding tools.
  • Professional data widens its business: Microsoft owns LinkedIn's recruiting, advertising and workplace-learning network.

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Benefits

  • Health Insurance
  • Dental Insurance
  • Vision Insurance
  • 401(k) Company Match
  • Professional Development Budget
  • Conference Attendance Budget
  • Flexible Work Hours
  • Remote Work Options

Growth & Insights and Company News

6 month growth

1%

1 year growth

0%

2 year growth

0%
Yahoo Finance
Oct 27th, 2026
Microsoft offers buyouts to 60,000 staff as $175B AI spending raises questions

Microsoft is offering voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees, more than a quarter of its global workforce, as it tries to control costs and fund its artificial intelligence (AI) push. The offer covers eligible staff at level 70 and below in the US, Canada, India, and the UK. Microsoft forecasts about $175 billion in capital expenditures and finance leases for the 2026 calendar year. Staff working on Copilot and AI experiences are eligible, as are those in finance, human resources, Xbox, and Windows + Devices. Sean Campbell, chief executive officer of Cascade Insights, says Microsoft is falling behind in the AI race. He says a buyout could suit workers who want to reach the job market before their peers. The offer follows an earlier buyout to about 9,000 US employees and roughly 4,800 job cuts in July.

The Register
Oct 27th, 2026
Microsoft chief executive Nadella's pay slips 6% to $90.6M despite $331.8B record revenue

Microsoft chief executive officer Satya Nadella's pay fell 6% to $90.6 million for fiscal 2026, according to the company's proxy statement. It included a $2.5 million base salary, $77.6 million in stock awards, and $10.3 million in incentive pay. The drop came despite a record year. Revenue rose 18% to $331.8 billion, and operating profit reached $155.237 billion, above his $130.96 billion target. Stock awards vest at different rates each year. Chief financial officer Amy Hood received $33.7 million, up from $29.5 million. Microsoft added 88 datacenters, reached 30 million paid Copilot seats, and returned $43.8 billion to shareholders. Investors vote on executive pay at the annual meeting on December 8. Last year, 91% voted in favour.

Associated Press
Oct 27th, 2026
MT Newswires' real-time financial news now live in Microsoft Copilot via MCP

MT Newswires, a financial news provider, has made its real-time newsfeed available inside Microsoft Copilot through a Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration. It announced the move on October 27, 2026. Users can access company news, earnings, macroeconomic analysis, and sector insights within Word, Excel, Outlook, and Teams. Responses link to their sources, so users can trace outputs back to original reporting rather than generic AI summaries. The integration needs no coding to activate. It is available today across Copilot, with availability in Copilot Studio. "Our clients don't want another platform to check — they want answers where they're already working," said Weston Walker, global head of sales and partnerships at MT Newswires. The company's MCP server is also available in Anthropic's Claude and Perplexity Computer.

CNBC
Oct 26th, 2026
Microsoft offers buyouts to around 60,000 employees across four countries

Around 60,000 Microsoft employees across four countries are eligible for a new buyout program, a person familiar with the matter said. The company announced the programme on Monday. Victoria Greene, chief investment officer at G Squared Private Wealth, joined "The Exchange" to discuss Microsoft stock in light of the news.

Fortune
Oct 26th, 2026
Xbox's new pay-as-you-go cloud gaming, from $4 for 10 hours, angers gamers over rising costs

Xbox has launched Cloud Playtime, a pay-as-you-go option that lets Game Pass subscribers buy extra cloud gaming hours once they hit their cap. Ten extra monthly hours cost $4, 25 hours cost $8, and 50 hours cost $12. Game Pass subscribers already pay between $10 and $23 a month for five to 15 hours of cloud gaming. Xbox introduced the cap in September; the service had been unlimited when it launched in 2020 as a cheaper alternative to buying games. Some gamers have criticised the change. YouTuber Yong Yea said the extra fees undermine cloud gaming's affordability argument. The move comes as Xbox cut 20% of its workforce, about 3,200 roles, amid slumping revenue from falling hardware sales and Game Pass subscription losses.