Data Center Technician Manager

Microsoft Data Center Technician (DCT) Manager

As a Microsoft Data Center Technician (DCT) Manager, you will lead a team of technicians, providing expert guidance on performing hardware deployments, diagnostics on equipment, and hardware decommissions. You will support technician performance, prioritizing technician tasks while monitoring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This opportunity will allow you to model leadership principles, provide training to technicians, and accelerate your career growth in the process.

Microsoft's Cloud Operations & Innovation (CO+I) is the engine that powers our cloud services. As a CO+I DCT Manager, you will perform a key role in delivering the core infrastructure and foundational technologies for Microsoft's online services including Bing, Office 365, Xbox, OneDrive, and the Microsoft Azure platform. As a group, CO+I is focused on the personal and professional development of all employees and offers training and growth opportunities including Career Rotation Programs, Diversity & Inclusion training and events, and professional certifications.

Our infrastructure is comprised of a large global portfolio of more than 200 data centers in 32 countries and millions of servers. Our foundation is built upon and managed by a team of subject matter experts working to support services for more than 1 billion customers and 20 million businesses in over 90 countries worldwide.

With environmental sustainability and optimization at the forefront of our data center design and operations, we continue to grow and evolve as we meet the ever-changing business demands that hold Microsoft as a world-class cloud provider.

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.

In this environment, you may be asked to go on business travel to support other metros periodically, 0-25% of the time and have the ability to work 12-hour shifts, including shift assignments during non-standard business hours that may include evening, nighttime, weekends and/or holidays.

Microsoft is unable to sponsor a work visa for this role due to the nature of the role's job duties.

Responsibilities

• Ensures a team of technicians can complete assigned tickets efficiently and in alignment with relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) per task type. Supports escalation of challenging or complex tickets to internal business partners and appropriately summarizes relevant issues for communication to direct-line management. Coordinates and assigns tasks to technicians, and/or provides input or coordination with appropriate program managers and direct-line management for ticket assignment automation to provide direction as needed, to ensure work is appropriately allocated to meet Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) per task type. Monitors progress of tickets assigned to teams of technicians and adjusts where necessary, to meet established Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) per task type. Analyzes data related to technicians' performance on tickets and shares with direct-line management.
• Advises on and reviews suggested modifications to process and procedures to manage changes and drive improvement in service quality and/or efficiency. Proactively investigates, evaluates, and analyzes changes. Reviews Process Change Notifications (PCNs) to evaluate impact on service execution and shares relevant information about change with stakeholders across functions and disciplines to mitigate the impact they may have on others. Encourages technicians to ask questions when they do not have required information, resolves others' questions in a timely manner, and may provide feedback on changes to processes to direct-line management, standards management teams, and/or project, program, or special initiative managers.
• Encourages the sharing of expertise in and provides guidance on standard processes and procedures for preparing, installing, performing diagnostics, troubleshooting, replacing, and decommissioning IT datacenter technology(ies) and equipment. Encourages the sharing of expertise and provides guidance on the functions of, and interactions between cabling infrastructure, network, server, and storage equipment. Develops awareness of Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Foundation components: Incident Management and Change Management.
• Provides guidance on, and holds a team of technicians accountable for compliance with Data Center business unit policies, procedures, and deadlines. Proactively reviews and provides feedback regarding Data Center business unit policies, procedures, and deadlines. Resolves issues related to compliance or operational assurance activities directly, or with assistance from compliance colleagues and/or business partners. Provides input on improvement plan components for service delivery gaps or challenges.

Datacenter Work Environment

• Working for extended periods under elevated levels of ambient noise, heat, and light due to necessary equipment and ventilation systems.
• Completes required security and data management training, ensures technicians completion of applicable training, and maintains accountability for technician compliance with security and data management procedures/policies. Ensures that policies and procedures securing physical access to the data center or network site environment(s) are appropriately enforced. May escort third party vendors or IT support on-premises at data centers or network sites. Appropriately takes action and reports physical security access concerns and/or incidents, and gathers information about such events reported by their team to inform direct-line management and escalates to relevant stakeholders. Participates in identifying the root cause of any physical security access violations and manages corrective actions and escalations related to technician violations of physical security procedures or policies.
• Traveling up to 25% typically domestically to and from multiple locations during the workday, and occasionally domestically to other sites for overnight stays. May work 12-hour shifts, including shift assignments during non-standard business hours such as evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays.
• Promotes a positive and effective team environment by modeling best practices, leading regular team meetings, cross-discipline collaborations, and monitoring the status of work across their team to understanding the impact on other shifts/technician teams, engineering groups or internal business partner needs and the overall business. Provides, responds to, and encourages providing feedback regarding on ways to work more effectively or enhance efficiency within their team and adopts best practices shared within-and-across shifts or technician teams.
• Occasional climbing of ladders. Frequent climbing of stairs and/or ramps. Prolonged standing. Occasional lifting up to 25lbs / 11kg without assistance. Occasional lifting 25-50lbs / 11-22.5kg with lift assistance. Occasional push or pull 50-75 lbs / 22.5-34kg with assistive device. Normal visual acuity (near, far and peripheral with correction), defined via standard medical terms and applicable criteria. Normal color vision for electrical work, defined via standard medical terms and applicable criteria.
• Conducts daily safety briefings, ensuring their team members attend, and/or participates in onsite safety committees. Completes required Environmental & Health Safety (EHS) training, ensures technicians comply with EHS training completion requirements and are compliant with safety procedures (e.g., equipment use, lifting, electrical hazards, ladder/rolling stair use), Task Hazard Analysis (THAs) completion, and use of appropriate equipment and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for assigned tasks. Adheres to and promotes a culture of safety, empowering technician teams to report and/or take proactive action regarding safety concerns, near-misses, and/or incidents. Participates in regular cadence proactive safety observation reporting processes and systems, and follows up with their team members as needed regarding actionable safety observations reported.

Managing Service

• Partners with internal and external stakeholders to manage the removal of risks to personnel and/or resource availability, performance, and compliance.
• Identifies and assigns required training as applicable across all technician job focus areas and workloads (i.e., Break fix, Deployment, Simple Change, Decommission, IT Critical Environment) along with Personnel Management training in a timely manner per direct-line management assignment(s) and validates completion of assigned training by team members. May complete additional or supplemental training to obtain or maintain relevant industry or technical certifications and advise their team on relevant certifications to obtain.
• Exercises judgment and discretion to contribute to issue tracking related to follow-up and resolution to overall quality of service escalations and/or proactive initiatives. Maintains responsibility for client and technician team interactions for escalations and/or engagements between them and other internal business partners.
• Collects and reviews appropriate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for their team to support line of business (e.g. performance measures, long-term trends) and/or business intelligence analysis (e.g., service availability data, system health). Shares feedback from reviews with technicians to drive improvement in meeting KPI expectations and sharing learnings from reviews with direct-line management.

People Management

• Managers deliver success through empowerment and accountability by modeling, coaching, and caring. Model: Live our culture. Embody our values. Practice our leadership principles. Coach: Define team objectives and outcomes. Enable success across boundaries. Help the team adapt and learn. Care: Attract and retain great people. Know each individual's capabilities and