Cost Reporting Engineer

Microsoft Cloud Operations and Innovation (CO+I) is the team behind the cloud.  Within CO+I, the Global Project Controls (GPC) team is responsible for delivering core datacenter infrastructure for Microsoft’s cloud business. The MS portfolio consists of complex, multi-disciplinary, large scale, multi-year datacenter construction and lease projects. We are looking for passionate, high-energy individuals to help build the cloud datacenters that power the world’s largest online services.  

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Cost Reporting Engineer to join our team. The successful candidate possesses analytical, cost management, and project management skills along with innovative thinking. In this role, you will take on various technical and analytical challenges while working with a collaborative team. You will have the opportunity to build relationships with various teams and provide valuable insights to decision-makers. Your expertise will be essential in identifying and interpreting trends and patterns in datasets to locate influences. Additionally, you may construct forecasts, recommendations, and strategic/tactical plans based on your data analysis and knowledge. A significant aspect of this role involves working closely with project teams to report on project health and influence the way the team understands and mitigates project risks. Your input will be invaluable in shaping the future direction of our projects. If you are passionate about project management and data analysis and are eager to make a meaningful impact, we would love to hear from you. Join us in this exciting journey and help us drive success through innovative solutions and strategic planning. 

This role is located either in one or all hub locations: Atlanta, GA, Phoenix, AZ, Redmond, WA, San Antonio, TX, or Washington, DC. Relocation support will be provided, and successful candidates must ​relocate or reside within 50 miles of the hub office location. This role is eligible for hybrid or remote work, up to 100%. 

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. 

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics, Analytics, Data Science, Engineering, Computer Science, Business, Economics or related field AND 4+ years experience in data analysis and reporting, data science, business intelligence, or business and financial analysis.
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 2+ years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.
• Experience with common data tools such as SQL, Python, Tableau, R, and Power BI.
• Experience in engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) projects or operating in industrial facilities in a cost control position with responsibility to drive cost and schedule project performance in either an owner’s role, or for an EPC or general contractor. 

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

• Demonstrative ability to generate descriptive and predictive insights from data via analytic methods.  Applied understanding of project controls principles combining cost and schedule impacts to projects, cost management, estimating, scheduling and change control.
• Progressed experience with applications such as MS Office (specifically Excel), SharePoint, Power BI, Earned Value Management Systems as well as working knowledge of off the shelf project management software such as Omega 365
• Exposure to performance measurement and cost/schedule integration concepts and principles.
• Proven ability to foster collaborative relationships and gain support from a diverse range of stakeholders, including cost management and scheduling teams, design and engineering managers, construction managers, finance partners, software engineers, and various executive levels.
• Effective communication, presentation, analytical, problem-solving, and critical thinking abilities, with a demonstrated commitment to data-driven decision-making and program management.
• Experience with project management platforms in roles as an owner, general contractor, or consultant.

Technical Program Management IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $117,200 - $229,200 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 $153,600 - $250,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:

Microsoft will accept applications and processes offers for these roles on an ongoing basis.

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Customer and Market Signals 

• Understands and starts to build experiences across multiple groups or divisions. Starts to coach internal team to develop problem statements and form hypotheses of multiple feature areas (e.g., product, service) to address complex business, program, and customer needs, and/or market opportunities; identifies all dependencies effected by the proposal. Owns and performs experiments to test hypotheses and inform decisions on what multiple feature areas (e.g., product, service) to introduce. Establishes clarity of patterns of root problem and how it relates with previously seen trends across customers; determines the customers/sectors impacted and provides research evidence to determine priorities. Determines and leads process improvements to quickly scope insights. Ensures alignment between the customer, the market, internal stakeholders, and the goals of and strategy of Microsoft. Collaborate with others (e.g., Engineering, Marketing, Design) to ensure that they can satisfy customer requirements. Evaluates the opportunity to determine for greatest value to the business. Defines solution options and proposed solution roadmap across multiple feature areas within multiple stages. 

• Identifies complex opportunities and gaps in the implementation of multiple feature areas (e.g., product, service) including comparison of various quality and performance metrics to various solutions. May lead customer engagements to solicit feedback and understand their experiences with Microsoft’s products and services. Independently performs complex market research in collaboration with other teams, conducts competitive analyses, and examines customer and technology-related industry trends, as well as industry-specific requirements or regulations. Integrates relevant data on product usage, product telemetry, and service data together to identify complex patterns, generate hypotheses, and build a plan to change the product. 

Product/Service Definition 

• Defines the program(s) goals and prioritization for the multiple feature areas (e.g., product, service) they own. Translates the needs of the organization and other teams into program goals and prioritized deliverables based on data-focused analysis. Engages in active risk management (proactive and reactive) to identify risks and propose mitigations for risks using data (e.g., telemetry, usage, net satisfaction, customer satisfaction). 

• Defines success criteria and performance metrics (e.g., Objectives and Key Results [OKRs], Key Performance Indicators [KPIs] such as quality and performance) of multiple feature areas (e.g., product, service) and works with Software and Hardware Engineering to ensure needed telemetry is developed. Deeply understands the return on investment and presents it to key stakeholders. 

• Partners with CO+IE Engineering to design architecture and integrated customer solutions to complex technical needs for multiple feature areas (e.g., product, service). Proposes design and architecture documents for multiple feature areas. Understands what options are available and partners with others to identify and select best option for needs and creates new solutions if needed. Collaborates with architects and technical partners to develop architecture. Works with internal and external technical partners and/or architects to represent technical solutions to customers. 

Product/Service Development 

• Contributes to the development of the staging and implementation plan for piloting/release in alignment with Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for multiple feature areas (e.g., product, service) Collaborates with stakeholders to monitor progress and adjust as needed. 

• Manages governance programs and processes to ensure that specific performance requirements and standards are met throughout the development lifecycle (e.g., quality, compliance, privacy, security, safety, accessibility). 

• Creates relationships to drive orchestration and integration efforts for the development and implementation process of multiple feature areas (e.g., product, services) for large and complex cross functional projects with internal teams and external partners. Collaborates and coordinates across organizations to ensure alignment on product management and release, including tradeoffs, adjustments, and improvements as feasible. 

• Partners with the engineering team to contribute, prioritize, and deliver on the roadmap for multiple feature areas (e.g., product, service). Understands the value proposition for the multiple feature areas and answers technical questions on the multiple feature areas they own. 

• Validates use-case and scenario outcomes, and performance targets that are being achieved. Drives continuous quality improvements of the delivery. Writes readable and extensible test cases from scratch to test code and improve quality. 

• Collaborates with others to track, coordinate, and communicate end-to-end project schedules (e.g., epics, sprint/semester plans, milestones, timelines, releases) for multiple feature areas (e.g., product, service). Works with others to establish and monitor processes and helps hold stakeholders accountable for following the established schedule and processes. Helps track and manage dependencies to enable cohesive, connected user scenarios, and to identify potential risk areas and escalate appropriately. Makes adjustments or course corrections when projects are not aligned to schedules or goals. 

Product/Service Performance 

• Acts as a technical advisor to educate and evangelize the feature areas (e.g., product, service) they work on with customers via meetings, presentations, and other forums. Leads direct customer (internal and/or external) engagements to solicit feedback and understand their experiences with the feature areas (e.g., product, program, services). Helps deliver sales enablement and field support. Participates in business deals, creates strategic partnerships, and participates in pre-sales meetings with customers. 

• Leads teams to partner with others (e.g., Data Science, Software and Hardware Engineering) to collect performance metrics (e.g., Key Performance Indicators [KPIs] such as usage, quality, speed, and cost), monitor and report on progress (e.g., business reviews), and derive deep insights that lead to productive courses of action to improve development, iteration, and implementation of multiple feature areas (e.g., product, service). Leverages customer listening systems, telemetry, engagements (e.g., interviews, surveys), etc., to develop insights on product and/or service performance and customer needs. Shares insights with Engineering and other partners. Forms hypotheses to complex technical needs, performs experiments, and iterates to drive improvement in specific performance metrics. 

• Drives the customer supportability experience and provides documentation (e.g., troubleshooting guidelines, best practices, blogs). Monitors how products and/or services are being used; tracks and understands a root-cause analysis for live-site incidents with little guidance from others. Understands and drives improvements in the support process, including both forums and communities. Collaborates with and provides insight to Software and Hardware Engineering, Customer Service and Support (CSS), and other partners (e.g., business-process owners) on broad live-site improvement opportunities. 

Additional Responsibilities Applicable to Role 

• Design and build innovative data and analytics to support organization goals and KPIs. Use data to predict trends and perform data analysis from various sources to provide valuable insights. 

• Use data mining to extract information from data sets and identify correlations and patterns including identifying potential risks to aid decision-making. 

• Streamline data collection methods to create automation with data visualization, statistical analysis, and predictive modeling. 

• Document and enhance business processes, systems and analytics changes within the project team. 

• Validate key performance indicators and build queries to quantitatively measure business performance. 

• Development of new data tools and reports using Microsoft Power Suite of Tools such as PowerBI, Power Apps, Power Automate, Data Verse, etc., as well as implementing new business processes to better manage data. 

• Contribute to the development of a data-driven culture within the organization. 

• Evangelizes complex programs to stakeholders, partners, and customers to gain buy in. Leverages data and performance metrics (e.g., Objectives and Key Results [OKRs] and Key Performance Indicators [KPIs]) to demonstrate the value of the program and show business impact. Adapts communication style and storytelling strategy according to audience and business needs. 

• Demonstrates an understanding of mapping or how systems work and impact one another. Works with and leverages other teams (e.g., Supply Chain, Engineering, Sales) to ensure program processes are rigorous and executed efficiently. Develops processes around scope and scheduled changes for programs and communicates it to stakeholders. 

• Works with cross-functional (e.g., organizational, product, business) stakeholders (e.g., Engineering) to design compliant complex programs from initiation to delivery, with minimal coaching. Produces collateral (e.g., proposals, strategy walking deck, internal and external pitch content) to incorporate stakeholder needs and ensure the business objectives are met.