Data Center Technician Manager

Overview
As a 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 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 alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.
Responsibilities
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.

Data Center Operations

• Shares expertise in and provides guidance on standard processes and procedures for preparing, installing, performing diagnostics, troubleshooting, replacing, and decommissioning equipment, as well as knowledge of the functions of and interactions between network and server equipment; maintains an active awareness of Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Foundation protocols; 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 changes 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; encourages technicians to ask questions when they are missing relevant information and resolves others' questions in a timely manner.
• Provides guidance on, and holds a team of technicians accountable for, compliance with Data Center Services (DCS) business unit and service-level policies, procedures, deadlines, and service change policies; exercises judgment and discretion to provide input on service level and improvement plan components.

Service Delivery

• Ensures technicians are trained on procedures for installation, deployment, and/or replacement; provides guidance on prioritizing tasks and ensures technicians have developed capabilities required to complete tasks as well as access to tools and supplies required to perform work; investigates root causes of issues that may have impacted SLAs and takes proactive corrective action; advises on, reviews, and escalates suggested modifications to processes to meet or improve upon SLAs and ensure team/site KPIs are met.
• Performs post-execution quality checks as appropriate, ensures that technicians on their team are trained on performing post-execution quality check processes, and is responsible for verifying that post-execution quality checks have been performed appropriately by technicians and takes corrective action as needed; evaluates procedures for performing quality checks to ensure they align with compliance standards; may help manage escalations from Senior Technicians to coordinate corrections as needed; ensures technicians are aware of and execute on any changes to plans and/or protocols.
• Ensures that that tasks assigned to technicians are appropriate for their individual capabilities to meet or exceed established Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and they have access to and complete training related to diagnostic and troubleshooting; evaluates diagnostic and troubleshooting processes and suggests improvements; shares updates with relevant stakeholders during service incidents and escalates issues with significant customer or business impact to appropriate stakeholders.

Managing Services

• Exercises awareness and discretion to contribute to issue tracking, follow-up, and resolution; accountable for service compliance and quality; escalates issues through appropriate channels, follows-up on issue resolution, and shares knowledge related to issue resolution with appropriate teams; provides guidance to technicians around client interactions.
• Monitors services tickets and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and reports trends and service anomalies; leads team and triage meetings, prioritizes work across their team, and rebalances priorities to respond to changes; shares KPIs and other performance metrics with their team.
• Collects and reviews service metrics for their team to support service intelligence analysis (e.g., service availability data, performance measures, system health, long-term trends); shares feedback from reviews with technicians to drive improvement in meeting service metric expectations and standards; shares learnings from reviews of service metrics with operations management.

Data Center Work Environment

• Conducts daily safety briefings, completes required safety training, and participates in on-site safety committees; ensures technicians are complying with safety procedures (e.g., equipment use, lifting, electrical hazards, ladder/rolling stair use), completing required Task Hazard Analysis (THAs), and using appropriate tools and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for assigned tasks;promotes a culture of safety and empowers technicians to take action, speak up, and report safety concerns and/or incidents; participates in Get Out And Look (GOAL) safety observations.
• Holds any on-site personnel accountable for complying with security and data management procedures and ensures technicians have completed required security training; ensures that policies dictating access to the Data Center or network site are appropriately enforced; may escort third party vendors or IT support on-premises at Data Centers or network sites; gathers information about security concerns and/or incidents and escalates them to relevant stakeholders as needed; participates in identifying the root cause of any security violations and manages corrective actions and escalations related to individuals' violations of security procedures or policies.

Ownership

• Has pride and a sense of accountability for the service quality, completeness, and resulting user experience; displays accountability and ownership of the Data Center facilities; identifies unaddressed issues within his or her area of work, resolves, escalates, and/or finds the appropriate owner to ensure the highest level of quality service.
• Learns the client's business and maintains a client focus to optimize resources and improve quality; articulates the impact of work performed within the Data Center to technicians.

Other

• Embody our culture and values.

Qualifications
Required Qualifications

• High school diploma, GED, or equivalent and basic knowledge of computer hardware and components AND 3+ years experience supporting IT equipment or related technology or related experience working with technical teams.
• 1+ year(s) experience directing, supervising, or managing others.
• Ability to work 12-hour shifts, including shift assignments during non-standard business hours that may include evening, nighttime, weekends and/or holidays.

Other Requirements:
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.
• Citizenship & Citizenship Verification: This position requires verification of U.S. citizenship due to citizenship-based legal restrictions. Specifically, this position supports United States federal, state, and/or local United States government agency customers and is subject to certain citizenship-based restrictions where required or permitted by applicable law. To meet this legal requirement, citizenship will be verified via a valid passport.

Preferred Qualifications

• Associates degree in Computer Science or other field and/or equivalent work experience.
• 4+ years experience supporting IT equipment or related technology.
• 3+ years experience working in a production, mission-critical 24x7x365 datacenter environment.
• Applicable certifications: Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Foundation, ASICS/Inventory Control, CompTIA (A+, Server+, Network+), Basic Structure Cabling (BSC), Certified Data Center Professional (CDCP), Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), Six Sigma Green Belt).
• 2+ years experience leading diverse, technical or IT workforce of up to ten employees.

Data Center Technicians M3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $74,100 - $165,600 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 $101,200 - $182,200 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
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.
Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.