Principal Technical Program Architect - HPC/AI, Azure Core

The Azure High Performance Computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) product team drives the hardware roadmap, software, and services that enable our users and partners to run technical computing workloads in Azure - HPC simulations, AI & machine learning, remote visualization, and immersive gaming experiences. We are responsible for providing Azure customers and partners with supercomputer-class capabilities to accelerate their research, drive competitive differentiation, and find answers to some of the most difficult questions of science, industry, and entertainment.

As a Principal HPC and AI Technical Program Architect you will be providing thought leadership in HPC and AI and have a direct impact on Microsoft’s HPC and AI cloud offerings as well as our broader platform strategy. You will lead customer-facing engagements and projects focused on HPC/AI scenarios with our most strategic customers and most cutting-edge technologies. You will provide technical oversight and assurance, standards adoption and leadership for projects spanning multiple engineering teams and disciplines.

To be successful in this challenging position, you will need exceptional cross-group leadership, collaboration, strategic thinking, and customer skills. You must possess excellent communication and presentation skills as well as the ability to effectively interface with employees and partners at all levels. As a thought leader and technical expert, you will also need to have a deep understanding of the strategies and offerings of key competitors.

This role is fully remote. Travel will be 10-20% and the role requires the ability to work with clients both in-person at customer sites for extended periods, and remotely.

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.

• You will partner with Software and Hardware Engineering to design complex technical solutions across feature areas.
• You’ll also give key stakeholders data-driven recommendations based on identified risks.
• You’ll define success criteria and create relationships for implementing multiple feature areas for highly complex cross-functional projects.
• You’ll coordinate and ensure alignment across the business.
• Lead the architecture, design and implementation of complex HPC and AI programs and customer engagements, driving adoption of appropriate quality and security standards.
• You will be expected to demonstrate technical depth, breadth, continuous learning and attention to detail.
• Own and deliver the full breadth of end-to-end cloud solutions, including devops, identity management, networking, security, AI/HPC cluster technologies, schedulers, storage, interconnects, data platforms, AI/HPC software applications & tools, testing and monitoring solutions.
• You will deliver on roadmap for multiple feature groups across divisions, track project schedules, drive development of staging and implementation plans, and lead governance programs.
• Work with our key customers and partners to plan and prioritize what is important for our team and our organization.
• Support Azure HPC/AI growth by completing key projects and driving innovation with our top customers and partners.
• Represent your work, present technical challenges, solutions, and guidance to diverse audiences including senior customer technical and business decision makers, executives, conference attendees, and internal engineering leadership.
• Drive insights from customer and partner engagements to influence future product releases.
• You will help product owners understand and prioritize feedback for the improvement of products and services based on the customer and partner projects you will be delivering.
• Embody our culture and values through collaboration, integrity and accountability.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree or Masters' Degree in Computer Science or a related technical discipline or field AND experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development OR equivalent experience.
• Experience in architecting, delivering and/or operating complex highly performant HPC and/or AI solutions, preferably with a mix of pre and post-sales delivery and/or operations experience.
• Proven experience in an IT architect role or equivalent, preferably with both cloud and on-premises architecture experience including devops, identity management, networking, security, AI/HPC data platforms, testing and monitoring solutions.

Other Qualifications

• 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.
• The successful candidate must have or be able to obtain the Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) clearance as issued by the United Kingdom Security Vetting Unit (UKSV).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree or Masters' Degree with experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, OR product development OR equivalent experience.
• Experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects with excellent written and verbal communication skills, demonstrable experience in writing technical documentation, papers, presentations and reporting.
• Expert level skills with Linux and at least one workload manager (such as SLURM or PBS).
• Experience and expertise in HPC hardware and software – Linux, compute, schedulers, storage, parallel filesystems, interconnects and experience with HPC and AI applications and benchmarking.
• Very strong analytical and problem-solving skills with an ability to root-cause and resolve challenging technical problems independently.

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.