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Overview

Are you a customer-obsessed, AI-curious problem-solver who thrives in an inclusive, collaborative global team? Join Engineering Operations (EngOps) – the organization driving operational excellence across the Microsoft Cloud to strengthen quality, reliability, security, and customer trust. As part of EngOps, you’ll design solutions that prevent issues before they happen, embed AI-powered automation, and turn signals into actions that deliver measurable customer impact. Our culture of empowerment, inclusion, and growth mindset defines how we work.

The Customer Reliability Engineering (CRE) team within Azure EngOps is a top-level pillar of Azure Engineering responsible for world-class live-site management, customer reliability engagements, and modern customer-first experiences at scale. Our “no dead-ends” philosophy ensures that every customer, regardless of size or scale, can realize their full potential through the Microsoft Cloud.

We are seeking a decisive, detail-oriented Customer Communications Manager who will serve as the customer’s voice and advocate during high-severity incidents across Microsoft Azure. You will work closely with incident managers, engineering responders, and field stakeholders to shape and deliver clear, timely, and action-oriented communications during outages, security events, service retirements, and other high-impact scenarios.

This is a critical, customer-facing role requiring exceptional writing skills, calm leadership during ambiguity, and a passion for building customer trust through transparency and clarity. You’ll work at the intersection of customer support, technical operations, and communications—and you’ll help shape how Microsoft communicates during crises, preemptively and retrospectively.

Every day, customers stake their business and reputation on our cloud. You can help EngOps keep them secure, resilient, and ready.

Responsibilities

• To be successful in this role, you must bring customer empathy, crisp communication instincts, and the ability to lead with clarity under pressure. You will:

• Serve as the primary author and approver of customer-facing communications during service incidents (SEV0/SEV1/SEV2), coordinating across Engineering, Support, PM, and Field.

• Ensure every message to customers reflects transparency, empathy, and actionability, even in high-pressure and fast-moving environments.

• Actively partner with Incident Commanders to stay synchronized on technical developments and customer impact during live-site events.

• Review telemetry, support signals, and field input to guide communication strategy and tailor messaging to affected audiences.

• Participate in the on-call rotation as a Customer Communications Lead, contributing to a 24/7 response model.

• Contribute to Post-Incident Reviews (PIRs) by documenting impact, customer experience themes, and communication effectiveness.

• Work with tooling and platform teams to enhance the automation and targeting of service notifications, especially in Azure Service Health.

• Champion communication best practices, including ETA consistency, mitigation clarity, and consistent updates throughout the incident lifecycle.

• Help build communication playbooks and scalable frameworks for maintenance and retirement events.

• Partner with product, support, and engineering teams to identify improvements in customer readiness and self-serve guidance.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

+ Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Data Science, Cybersecurity, or related field AND 2+ years technical experience in software engineering, network engineering, service engineering, systems engineering, or industrial controls

+ OR equivalent experience.

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.

Preferred Qualifications:

+ 2-4+ years of experience in cloud operations, technical communications, incident response, or SRE roles in platforms like Azure, AWS, or GCP.

+ Must have enterprise in a 24×7×365 enterprise environment.

+ Exceptional written communication skills—able to distill complex technical topics into clear, concise, and customer-appropriate language under pressure.

+ Strong cross-team collaboration skills—able to align stakeholders and drive messaging consensus across Engineering, Comms, Support, and Field.

+ Demonstrated ability to make quick decisions and prioritize customer needs during ambiguity and chaos.

+ Understanding of incident management frameworks (e.g., ITIL) and customer communication strategies during high-impact events.

+ Strategic thinking and a customer-first mindset; able to advocate for improvements in platform transparency and experience.

+ Excellent problem-solving, judgment, and decision-making skills.

+ BS/BA in Communications, History, English, Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent experience.

+ Some familiarity with service health platforms and tooling for communicating incident status at scale (e.g., Azure Service Health, SHP, ICET, Status Page).

+ 5+ years experience managing or leading customer communications for high-severity incidents or outages.

+ Prior experience as an Incident Commander, Crisis Comms Manager, or Live Site Engineering lead.

+ Familiarity with cloud resiliency patterns, failover models, and recovery scenarios.

+ Experience with AI/ML-based tooling for incident detection, log correlation, or predictive alerting is a plus.

+ Certifications in cloud technologies (Azure, AWS, GCP), ITIL, or SRE frameworks are desirable.

+ Every day, customers stake their business and reputation on our cloud. You can help EngOps keep them secure, resilient, and ready.

\#engops #azcre

Service Engineering IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $100,600 - $199,000 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 $131,400 - $215,400 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

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. 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 with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations. (https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html)