Member of Technical Staff - Data Infrastructure Manager - Microsoft AI - Copilot

Overview
As Microsoft continues to push the boundaries of AI, we are on the lookout for passionate leaders to help us tackle the most interesting and challenging AI questions of our time. Our vision is bold and broad, to build systems that have true artificial intelligence across agents, applications, services, and infrastructure. It's also inclusive: we aim to make AI accessible to all, consumers, businesses, developers, so that everyone can realize its benefits.We're looking for a Data Infrastructure Manager to lead a team of talented engineers building and scaling the data infrastructure that powers Microsoft's consumer AI. This role sits at the intersection of technical leadership and people management. You'll set the technical direction for large-scale data and ML pipelines, AI agentic workflows, and intelligent systems while growing a high-performing team of ICs. If you've architected big data platforms from the ground up and are now ready to multiply your impact through others, including on some of the most exciting AI infrastructure challenges in the industry, we want to hear from you.

You'll bring:

• Deep technical expertise in big data and distributed systems
• A track record of leading and developing engineering talent
• A passion for automation, observability, and operational excellence
• The ability to translate complex technical strategy into clear, executable plans
• Empathy, collaboration, and a growth mindset

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.
Starting January 26, 2026, Microsoft AI (MAI) employees who live within a 50-mile commute of a designated Microsoft office in the U.S. or 25-mile commute of a non-U.S., country-specific location are expected to work from the office at least four days per week. This expectation is subject to local law and may vary by jurisdiction.

Responsibilities
Team Leadership & People Development

• Hire, mentor, and develop a team of Data Infrastructure Engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and continuous growth.
• Conduct regular 1:1s, set clear goals, and provide actionable feedback to support each engineer's career development.
• Build and sustain an inclusive, collaborative team environment aligned with Microsoft's values of Respect, Integrity, Accountability, and Inclusion.

Technical Strategy & Architecture

• Define and drive the technical vision for a scalable, reliable, and observable Big Data Infrastructure serving mission-critical AI applications, including agentic and intelligent systems.
• Lead technical design reviews, establish engineering standards, and ensure a clean, secure, and well-documented codebase.
• Partner with engineers to architect data solutions across storage, compute, and analytics layers, including the pipelines and orchestration frameworks that underpin AI agent workflows, balancing long-term scalability with near-term delivery.

Platform & Operations

• Champion DevOps and SRE best practices across the team, including automated deployments, service monitoring, and incident response.
• Guide the team in building a self-service big data platform that empowers data engineers, researchers, and partner teams.
• Oversee robust CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code practices using tools like Bicep, Terraform, and ARM.
• Lead capacity planning and drive proactive resolution of bottlenecks in data pipelines and infrastructure.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Act as a key technical partner to Data Engineers, Data Scientists, AI Researchers, ML Engineers, and Developers to deliver secure, seamless big data workflows.
• Collaborate with Security teams to uphold strong infrastructure security practices (IAM, OAuth, Kerberos).
• Represent the team in planning and prioritization discussions, translating organizational goals into actionable engineering roadmaps.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Math, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field AND 6+ years experience in business analytics, data science, software development, data modeling or data engineering work
  • OR Master's Degree in Computer Science, Math, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field AND 4+ years experience in business analytics, data science, software development, or data engineering work
    • OR equ