Principal Customer Experience Program Manager

Job Overview Are you a customer-obsessed, engineering-minded program leader who thrives in high-stakes, regulated environments? Do you want to build a new function from the ground up, one that prevents customer outages before they happen and transforms how Microsoft supports its most sensitive cloud customers?   Join Advanced Cloud Engineering & Supportability (ACES), a global Azure engineering support organization within Azure Engineering Operations (EngOps). ACES delivers engineering-led, world-class support across Azure's Government and Sovereign cloud portfolio, including US Government (Fairfax), and National Partner Clouds in France (Bleu), Germany (Delos), and Singapore (Merlion).   We are building a new Gov Customer Resiliency function within ACES that brings proactive reliability engineering in-house for Government customers. This is not reactive support, this is about changing the probability, blast radius, and recovery time of customer outages through engineering-led detection, readiness, and prevention.

We are hiring a Principal Customer Experience Program Manager to lead two interconnected workstreams under ACES Sovereign & Government:   1. Gov Customer Resiliency (60%) You will build and operate a new Gov Customer Resiliency function, standing it up from scratch, starting with a named high-profile Government customer and scaling to a portfolio of 3-5 top Gov/Azure Engineering Direct customers. This function brings proactive resiliency capabilities in-house for Government customers under Sovereign & Government business.   You will own the full resiliency lifecycle: proactive detection and monitoring, incident and crisis management coordination, post-incident RCA and problem management, architecture and DR guidance, and parity closure between Government and Commercial cloud environments.   This is a build + run role. In the first 90 days, you will shadow the current engagement lead on the named account, codify the operating model into a repeatable playbook, define success metrics, and take ownership of the customer relationship. From month 4 onward, you will run the function, scale it to additional customers, and extend the playbook to Sovereign clouds.   2. Sovereign Cloud Operations & Readiness (40%) You will drive support readiness, operational maturity, and customer experience strategy across Microsoft's Sovereign Cloud portfolio (Bleu, Delos, Merlion). This includes readiness frameworks for new Sovereign cloud launches, escalation flow design, CRI playbooks, Sev handling standards, cross-cloud staffing models, and compliance-aligned operational processes and playbooks.   You will partner closely with Sovereign delivery leadership, Azure engineering, and regional National Cloud Operating Entity (NCOE) partners to ensure Sovereign clouds are support-ready, compliant, and capable of delivering exceptional customer outcomes from Day 1.   Why This Role Matters This role sits at the intersection of two of ACES' most strategic investments: Gov Customer Resiliency brings proactive reliability engineering in-house for Government customers, moving Anusha's org from reactive support to engineered prevention. Instead of depending on another team for Gov customer resiliency, ACES owns the end-to-end customer experience. Sovereign Cloud Readiness ensures Microsoft's most compliance-sensitive cloud environments are support-ready from Day 1, protecting customer trust in markets where trust is the product.   The person in this role will build a new function, run it customer-facing, and scale it across the most critical cloud environments Microsoft operates. This is a rare opportunity to define how Microsoft supports its highest-trust customers, and to shape a practice that will become a model for the broader organization.   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