New 
Data Center Technician Manager
 Microsoft | |
 United States, Nevada, Reno | |
| 6840 Sierra Center Parkway (Show on map) | |
 Oct 08, 2025 | |
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OverviewAs a Microsoft Data Center Technician 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 Data Center Technician 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. This role is located in either one of the following locations - Boydton, VA, Dulles, VA, Richmond, VA, Reston, VA, Sterling, VA, Manassas, VA, Bristow, VA or Ashburn, VA. Relocation support will be provided, and successful candidates will need to relocate or reside within 50 miles of the office location. This role is for Fully Onsite work.
ResponsibilitiesPeople 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 adaptand learn.* Care - Attract and retain great people; Know each individual's capabilities and aspirations; Invest in thegrowth of others.Datacenter Operations* Encourages the sharing of expertise in and provides guidance on standard processes and procedures forpreparing, installing, performing diagnostics, troubleshooting, replacing, and decommissioning ITdatacenter technology(ies) and equipment. Encourages the sharing of expertise and provides guidance onthe 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 driveimprovement in service quality and/or efficiency. Proactively investigates, evaluates, and analyzeschanges. Reviews Process Change Notifications (PCNs) to evaluate impact on service execution and sharesrelevant information about change with stakeholders across functions and disciplines to mitigate theimpact they may have on others. Encourages technicians to ask questions when they do not have requiredinformation,resolves others' questions in a timely manner, and may provide feedback on changes toprocesses to direct-line management, standards management teams, and/or project, program, or specialinitiative managers.* Provides guidance on, and holds a team of technicians accountable for compliance with Data Centerbusiness unit policies, procedures, and deadlines. Proactively reviews and provides feedback regardingData Center business unit policies, procedures, and deadlines. Resolves issues related to compliance oroperational assurance activities directly, or with assistance from compliance colleagues and/or businesspartners. 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 KeyPerformance Indicators (KPIs) per task type. Supports escalation of challenging or complex tickets tointernal business partners and appropriately summarizes relevant issues for communication to direct-linemanagement. Coordinates and assigns tasks to technicians, and/or provides input or coordination withappropriate program managers and direct-line management for ticket assignment automation to providedirection 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, orserver equipment. Provides guidance to technicians for developing an effective execution order ofassigned 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 andprocess 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 plannedNetwork Design Templates (NDTs), taking corrective action(s) to address any non-compliance, andvalidates post-execution quality or validation training has been completed by applicable technicians toenable them. Identifies errors in deployment standards or Network Design Templates (NDTs) andcoordinates directly with internal business partners, technologists, or subject matter experts (SMEs) todevelop corrections as needed.* Evaluates diagnostic and troubleshooting processes and suggests improvements. Maintains advancedawareness of conditions, circumstances, and scenarios which may reflect significant customer or businessimpact within the Data Center environment, and escalates observations of imminent incident risks orpotential situations immediately to direct-line management.* Follows procedures to immediately engage Designated Responsible Individuals (DRIs) for appropriatecommunication, reporting, and incident management of data center technical or safety related incidentswith 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 asdirected if necessary. May leverage learnings to contribute to the improvement of quality of service andsupport. * Verifies compliance with standards and procedure for data-bearing devices (DBDs) destruction and/orconfirms any-and-all such devices (e.g. hard-drives, solid-state drives, flash cards, etc.) contained withinnetwork, storage, or server equipment has been identified for eradication or destruction. Createsschedules for shift-based technicians to ensure positioning and availability to execute work as defined byorganizational standards, negotiates with internal team colleagues to organize project timelines, withguidance 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, managesexpectations, and offers alternatives when defining technical solutions in light of ongoing operations andprocedures (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 tooverall quality of service escalations and/or proactive initiatives. Maintains responsibility for client andtechnician team interactions for escalations and/or engagements between them and other internalbusiness partners.* Collects and reviews appropriate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for their team to support line ofbusiness (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/orresource 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 PersonnelManagement training in a timely manner per direct-line management assignment(s) and validatescompletion of assigned training by team members. May complete additional or supplemental training toobtain or maintain relevant industry or technical certifications and advise their team on relevantcertifications to obtain. Datacenter Work Environment* Conducts daily safety briefings, ensuring their team members attend, and/or participates in onsite safetycommittees. Completes required Environmental & Health Safety (EHS) training, ensures technicianscomply 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 toand promotes a culture of safety, empowering technician teams to report and/or take proactive actionregarding safety concerns, near-misses, and/or incidents. Participates in the regular cadence of proactivesafety 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 applicabletraining, and maintains accountability for technician compliance with security and data managementprocedures/policies. Ensures that policies and procedures securing physical access to the data center ornetwork 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 accessconcerns and/or incidents, and gathers information about such events reported by their team to informdirect-line management and escalates to relevant stakeholders. Participates in identifying the root causeof any physical security access violations and manages corrective actions and escalations related totechnician violations of physical security procedures or policies.* Promotes a positive and effective team environment by modeling best practices, leading regular teammeetings, cross-discipline collaborations, and monitoring the status of work across their team tounderstand the impact on other shifts/technician teams, engineering groups or internal business partnerneeds, and the overall business. Provides, responds to, and encourages providing feedback regarding onways to work more effectively or enhance efficiency within their team and adopts best practices sharedwithin-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. | |