Data Center Technician 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.

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 aspirations; Invest in the growth of others.

Datacenter Operations

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

Service Delivery

• Coordinates training packages for technicians on procedures for installation, deployment, upgrade, refresh, simple change, decommission and/or replacement of infrastructure cabling, network, storage, or server equipment. Provides guidance to technicians for developing an effective execution order of assigned tasks and ensures technicians have access to tools and/or supplies required to perform work. Investigates root causes of issues that may have negatively impacted ticket Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) per task type, and takes proactive corrective action.
• Evaluates procedures for performing quality checks to ensure they align with compliance standards and process adherence, and takes responsibility for impact to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) by task type of work performed by technicians. Performs post-execution verification of grounding, staging, labeling, and cabling as needed to ensure alignment with all safety protocols, deployment standards, and planned Network Design Templates (NDTs), taking corrective action(s) to address any non-compliance, and validates post-execution quality or validation training has been completed by applicable technicians to enable them. Identifies errors in deployment standards or Network Design Templates (NDTs) and coordinates directly with internal business partners, technologists, or subject matter experts (SMEs) to develop corrections as needed.
• Evaluates diagnostic and troubleshooting processes and suggests improvements. Maintains advanced awareness of conditions, circumstances, and scenarios which may reflect significant customer or business impact within the Data Center environment, and escalates observations of imminent incident risks or potential situations immediately to direct-line management.
• Follows procedures to immediately engage Designated Responsible Individuals (DRIs) for appropriate communication, reporting, and incident management of data center technical or safety related incidents with direct-line management, internal business partners, and impacted engineering group contacts. Participates in bridge calls to provide details on incident status and executes on-site follow-up actions as directed if necessary. May leverage learnings to contribute to the improvement of quality of service and support.
• Verifies compliance with standards and procedure for data-bearing devices (DBDs) destruction and/or confirms any-and-all such devices (e.g. hard-drives, solid-state drives, flash cards, etc.) contained within network, storage, or server equipment has been identified for eradication or destruction. Creates schedules for shift-based technicians to ensure positioning and availability to execute work as defined by organizational standards, negotiates with internal team colleagues to organize project timelines, with guidance from direct-line management, and appropriate notification to stakeholders.
• Manages assigned projects or programs to meet service delivery objectives. Participates in pilot programs or task forces to ensure smooth implementation for future service delivery as directed.
• Proactively reviews schedules and avoids conflicts when possible. Identifies, coordinates, manages expectations, and offers alternatives when defining technical solutions in light of ongoing operations and procedures (e.g., schedule, technical feasibility, policy, procedure, tools).

Managing Service

• 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.
• 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.

Datacenter Work Environment

• 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 the regular cadence of proactive safety observation reporting processes and systems and follows up with their team members as needed regarding actionable safety observations reported.
• 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.
• 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 understand 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.

Physical Requirements (Applies to but is not limited to US-based Data Center roles)

• Occasional climbing of ladders.
• Frequent climbing of stairs and/or ramps.
• Prolonged standing.
• Occasional lifting 50lbs. / 22.5kg.
• Occasional push or pull 50-75lbs. / 22.5-34kg. with assistive device.
• *Normal visual acuity (near, far and peripheral with correction).
• *Normal color vision for electrical work.
• *Normal is defined via standard medical terms and applicable criteria.

Other

• Embody our culture and values.