Technical Program Manager 2 - Readiness Assessment & OEM Quality

Microsoft's Windows Ecosystem and Commercial Engagement organization is building a closed-loop quality-readiness system for strategically important third-party OEM devices. The system connects OEM and silicon readiness, structured Readiness Assessment, controlled entrance into SelfHost, launch decisions, and post-launch learning. Its purpose is not to produce more activity or another dashboard. It is to give leaders and partners a trustworthy answer to whether a hardware-software configuration is ready to advance, what evidence supports that call, what risk remains, and who owns the next action. 

As a Technical Program Manager II, you will own the program mechanisms surrounding this system: portfolio intake, partner alignment, integrated planning, readiness governance, risk and dependency management, decision records, and executive communication. You will work across Hero Device Engineering (HDE) and Hero Device Validation (HDV) program teams, OEM and silicon partners, Windows engineering, lab and test leads, data and reporting teams, SelfHost operations, and internal marketing and sales. You will turn ambiguity into an operating model and technical evidence into decisions while protecting partner trust and clear engineering accountability.

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.

• Lead the end-to-end program operating model for a portfolio of strategic OEM device readiness initiatives, from portfolio intake and scenario definition through OEM self-assessment, Microsoft Readiness Assessment, SelfHost entrance, release milestones, and post-launch learning. 
• Build and maintain integrated plans that connect OEM and silicon schedules, device availability, hardware and software manifests, BIOS, firmware, drivers, images, lab capacity, assessment criteria, evidence requirements, remediation work, and decision gates. 
• Create trusted partnerships with HDE and HDV program managers, OEM counterparts, silicon partners, engineering and quality teams, internal marketing and sales, and senior leaders. Clarify roles, service expectations, handoffs, decision rights, and escalation paths across organizational boundaries. 
• Drive portfolio prioritization using customer personas, product and sales importance, reviewer influence, new silicon or architecture risk, technical novelty, historical escapes, and available capacity. Make tradeoffs visible and recommend where impartial Microsoft evidence matters most. 
• This role requires the confidence to manage requests and weigh the resource capacity, schedule implications, and ROI. Ensuring clear outcomes, owners, capacity plan, or approved tradeoffs.  
• Establish and run scalable governance, including weekly portfolio reviews, milestone and readiness reviews, integrated risk and dependency tracking, gate-exception records, and decision logs. Ensure every material risk has an accountable owner, next action, date, closure evidence, and escalation path. 
• Facilitate readiness and entrance decisions using defined criteria, evidence confidence, hard-stop conditions, and explicit exceptions. Record the decision authority, rationale, residual risk, and evidence that would change the posture; never allow schedule pressure or incomplete data to become a silent gate bypass. 
• Translate assessment findings, telemetry, quality signals, and partner status into concise, decision-ready recommendations for technical and executive audiences. Separate measured facts from targets and estimates, surface unknowns and data-quality limitations, and communicate what needs to happen next. 
• Drive timely issue routing and follow-through across OEM, silicon, Windows, tooling, and operational owners. You will not own every technical fix, but you will make ownership gaps, aging dependencies, unresolved tradeoffs, and decisions requiring leadership action impossible to miss. 
• Define and improve portfolio metrics such as on-time verdicts, critical-criteria coverage, evidence completeness, receipt-to-verdict time, partner response aging, owner and disposition timeliness, capacity returned through automation, and covered post-launch escapes. Partner with data owners to preserve definitions, provenance, and confidence. 
• Scale the system through reusable intake contracts, templates, playbooks, service-level expectations, retrospectives, and AI-assisted workflows. Partner with lab and engineering leads on test automation and OEM self-assessment  while retaining deterministic validation, accountable human judgment, Microsoft audit authority, and OEM confidentiality. 

Required Qualifications: 

• Bachelor's Degree AND 2+ years experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development.
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 1+ year(s) of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree and 8+ years of experience in engineering, product or technical program management, product development, data analysis, or a related field, or equivalent experience; including 6+ years leading cross-functional or cross-team initiatives. 
• 2+ years of experience managing cross-functional or cross-team projects with interdependent technical, operational, partner, and business deliverables. 
• Experience gathering business and technical requirements and translating them into program plans, milestones, readiness criteria, decision gates, metrics, and accountable actions. 
• Demonstrated experience using data to assess program health, identify and mitigate risks, manage dependencies, resolve ambiguity, and influence technical and business decisions. 
• Demonstrated ability to communicate complex technical and program information clearly to engineers, partner organizations, business stakeholders, and senior leaders, and to drive alignment without direct authority. 
• Experience with hardware-software system readiness, Windows or another operating-system platform, device development, drivers, firmware, servicing, reliability, or product-quality programs.  
• Experience managing external engineering relationships with OEMs, silicon vendors, suppliers, or other partners where trust, confidentiality, shared dependencies, and influence without authority are essential. 
• Experience designing or operating readiness assessments, launch gates, validation programs, quality reviews, risk-acceptance mechanisms, or post-launch learning loops. 
• Experience with Azure DevOps, Power BI, Kusto or KQL, SQL, Azure Data Explorer, or comparable planning and analytics platforms, with a solid understanding of metric definitions and data provenance. 
• A track record of establishing governance and reusable mechanisms that improve delivery consistency, decision quality, organizational accountability, and measurable business or customer outcomes across a highly matrixed environment. 
• Experience applying automation or AI to program workflows, analysis, reporting, or risk identification while preserving human accountability and sound judgment. 
• PMP, PgMP, Lean, Six Sigma, Agile, or comparable program-management training or demonstrated practical mastery of those disciplines. 
• Experience reading or writing code, queries, technical specifications, or automation logic sufficiently to collaborate effectively with software engineering, data, and tooling teams. 

What Success Looks Like 

• Readiness verdicts and recommendations arrive before the decision gate with current configuration identity, complete evidence, clear confidence, named owners, and explicit residual risk. 
• Assessment turnaround improves, fewer programs are delayed by preventable intake or ownership gaps, and leaders spend less time reconciling raw data before making a decision. 
• OEM, silicon, engineering, lab, SelfHost, marketing, and sales stakeholders understand the operating contract and trust the process even when the evidence requires a difficult hold, remediation, or risk-acceptance decision. 
• Makes alignment a prerequisite for commitment and clarifies the expectation to challenge or redirect work that is not supported by agreed priorities, ownership, or capacity.  
• The team supports more strategic programs at fixed staffing through standardized mechanisms, automation, and responsible AI, while post-launch escapes continuously improve future assessment criteria and coverage. 

#W+DJOBS

Technical Program Management IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $102,100 - $202,200 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 $133,800 - $219,200 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.