Microsoft Cloud Operations + Innovation (CO+I) is the engine that powers Microsoft's cloud services and our team is focused on delivering high quality infrastructure to support cloud operations. As Microsoft’s Cloud business continues to mature, our infrastructure expansion accelerates, and Data Centers are central to this growth. To support this, the acquisition and development of our owned, designed, and constructed Data Center facilities will scale to meet the demands of our customers, while we also continue to lease and acquire Data Center capacity at pace, particularly in our high growth markets, working closely with Data Center operators in each region, and across the Globe.  

The Lease Program Manager is accountable for driving on-time delivery of lease construction projects for the region. The Lease Program Manager will partner closely with the Construction Project Managers, Lessors, Data Center Engineering team and supporting consultants to ensure that each project is tracked, risk assessed, and the issues are resolved in a timely manner to minimize the business impact. The Lease Program Manager is responsible for triaging project delays to predict Ready for Service (RFS) and apply mitigation action plans, based on Lessons Learned from previous projects and industry best practice.

The Lease Program Manager will coordinate with the Data Center Operations team to ensure that the turned over Data Center has met the Microsoft standards, and the lessor has complied and delivered their technical commitments.

The Lease Program Manager is responsible for ensuring all Technical Open Items (TOIs) and Design Implementation Pending (DIP) items are closed by respective parties prior to RFS certification acceptance by key stakeholders.

The Lease Program Manager will also be actively involved during the site due diligence SOQ stage to ensure that contractual RFS date has incorporated known dependencies and stakeholders sign off and as well as driving process improvements in alignment with our organizations Objectives & Key Results (OKRs).

The role of the Lease Program Manager requires strong interpersonal, communication and organizational skills, ability to self-direct, strong background in data center design, engineering, controls, and operational requirements and an emphasis on project/construction management, and datacenter lease market experience.

Responsibilities

Responsibilities:

Alignment and execution of our Objectives & Key Results:

Business Processes:

• Own the successful delivery of your organization’s OKRs (Objective and Key Results) related to critical delivery of RFS milestones across your portfolio.

• Facilitate decision-making to drive solutions and apply influence, strategies to identify options and recommend solutions.

• When the Lease contract has been executed, setting up and managing, reporting forums to assess construction, and commissioning progress, understanding and manage risk and coordinate with stakeholders.

• Applying a ‘growth-mindset’ philosophy to the day-to-day tasks and ensuring that any deficiencies identified within the processes/framework are addressed and improvements are implemented.

• Conduct Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for lease construction delays and drive deployment of solutions that can be socialized globally across lease projects.

Communication:

• Bridge the gap between DCD construction, lessor, and the lease team. Act as a single point of contact representing the lease team for construction project development and delivery.

• Coordinate meetings and activities on issue resolutions to resolve construction delays.

• Report project progress, risk matrix, delays, root causes and mitigations as required.

• Ensure data accuracy of your project status across cross-organizational reporting.

Accountability:

• On-time delivery of lease construction projects for the region.

• Ensure that the turned over Data Center has met the Microsoft standards, and the lessor has complied and delivered their technical commitments.

• RFS certification compliance tracking and reporting.

• Tracking and closure of Design Implementation Pending (DIP) and Technical Open Items (TOIs) by respective functions.

• Predict RFS delays and apply mitigation.

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Qualifications

Preferred, not required:

• 5+ years of experience in construction or engineering of data centers/Mission Critical Facilities.

• Verbal and Written Communication Skills in English

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. Consistent with applicable law, 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 and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations (https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html) .