Technical Program Manager at Microsoft Nigeria

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company with headquarters in Redmond, Washington. It develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers.

At Microsoft our mission and values are to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Technical Program Manager

Job number: 1257222
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Employment Type: Full-Time
Profession: Business Programs & Operations
Role type: Individual Contributor
Travel: 25-50 %

Africa Transformation Office (ATO) Background

• Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Africa is one of the best places on the planet to bring our mission to life. It is home to 1.3B people and 54 countries.
• The talent in Africa reflects a tremendously rich and diverse potential that can truly impact the world over the next few decades. Being the youngest continent in the world with a median age of just 19.5 years, Africa is contributing to +12M youth being added to the global labor force every year. By 2040, half of the world’s young people will live in Africa. Africa’s growth is propelled by being a mobile first continent which is fueling connectivity, innovation, and scalability.
• Our aspiration is to transform Africa to a Cloud-first, Digital-first continent enabling a thriving digital economy across Africa while reinventing Microsoft’s digital assets and capabilities to serve the young continent’s transformation needs. With that in mind was the establishment of new team; the Africa Transformation Office (ATO), which will be established and chartered with the following:
  • Build strategic, unconventional partnerships with key governments, institutions, and enterprises to enable and accelerate digital economy across the African continent.
  • Develop digital marketing engines to enable and accelerate Startups and SMBs.
  • Plan and land infrastructure enablers and game changers in the continent.
  • Enable Africa as a Foreign Direct Investment destination supported by expanding our technologies for MNCs across key industries.
  • Manage the 4Afrika initiative and further integrate it to key company programs and engines to amplify its impact.
  • Foster digital skilling and job creation to maximize the economic opportunity for the African youth and workforce.

Role Summary 

• This role will report into the ATO SME and Startup Lead and can be based out of Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria or South Africa.
• Microsoft aspires to help our customers achieve their own digital transformation, leveraging the power of Microsoft Cloud solutions and support offerings. To this end, Microsoft invests in a dedicated team that will help Microsoft customers successfully realize their business outcomes.
• Azure is the most comprehensive, innovative, and flexible cloud platform today and Microsoft is hiring professionals that will drive customer cloud adoption within the most important companies in the market. We are always learning. Insatiably curious.
• We lean into uncertainty, take risks, and learn quickly from our mistakes. We build on each other’s ideas because we are better together. We stand in awe of what humans dare to achieve and are motivated every day to empower others to do more and achieve more through our technology and innovation. Together we make a difference.
• We are looking for a highly motivated and passionate Technical Program Manager to join the ATO.
• This position is a hands-on technical role spanning across design, build, and production with a focus on issue resolution to remove technical obstacles and adoption challenges.
• As part of this role, you will be responsible for technical engagements, working with the most challenging and exciting projects within Africa Startups and independent software vendors (ISVs) base. You will also be responsible for engagements with Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) – a key focus segment for the ATO team lead.
• You will work with select entities to lead deep technical architecture discussions with senior executives, Enterprise Architects, IT Management and Developers.
• You will collaborate with a variety of internal and external teams to develop pilots and oversee implementation projects, ensuring technical blockers are removed on adoption.
• You will drive technical intensity of developers and create communities within African Startups and ISVs.
• And you will collaborate with Product engineering to share feedback into the development of Microsoft products and help develop Azure platforms.

Responsibilities

• Capture share of the African market in the Startups and ISVs ecosystem, by Articulating the value position of partnership with Microsoft in Africa both on Technical and business areas, and Establish relationship with key stakeholders of the Startups ecosystem (Government, VCs, Incubation Centers). This scope will also cover SMEs being targeted through the ATO SME strategy.
• Understand Startups and ISVs’ overall applications portfolio, IT and business priorities and success measures to design implementation architectures and solutions (Microsoft and 3rd party solutions) using PaaS, DevOps & Advanced Application development.
• Run Architectural Design Sessions to build plans for implementing solution –governing design in line with Startups and ISVs business goals and their technical environment. Outcome is consensus on solution design and next steps toward production.
• Develop deep relationships with key Startups’ decision makers, driving long-term technology strategy adoption within their companies to enable them to be advocates for Azure cloud. Create & articulate compelling value propositions around Azure services to increase adoption.
• Be the Voice of the Customer; Share insights and best practices, and connect with Engineering teams to remove blockers
• Trouble shoot technical issues to prove value of implementation of Azure technologies
• Assess the Startups’ and ISVs’ knowledge of Azure platform and overall cloud readiness to support them through a structured learning plan and ensure its delivery through partners · Collaborate with others in developing complex end-to-end Enterprise solutions on the Microsoft Azure platform
• Maintain technical skills and knowledge of market trends and competitive insights; collaborate and share with the SME, Startups and ISVs technical community
• Build and grow Startups and ISVs developer communities by driving activities including Developer Events, Open-Hacks and Workshops.
• Envision the important interdependencies of 3rd party solutions, services and equipment, as well as Partner-to-Partner (P2P) motions for better together strategies among different startups and partner types.
• Advise on Go to Market plans for SME & startups to scale their business across Africa, whilst helping in Developing case studies.
• Acts as the “virtual Chief Technology Officer (CTO)/Chief Digital Officer (CDO)” or “go-to” person in established, long-term relationships with technical decision makers (TDMs) and/or business decision makers (BDM) at the C-level (to the extent that the startup/select SMEs will call for consultation without being prompted) and advises on solutions and positions Microsoft offerings.

Qualifications

• Professional Experience. 5+ years of success in consultative/complex technical sales and deployment projects, architecture, design, implementation, and/or support of highly distributed applications
• 5+ years as a credible Technical Advisor to Partners, Startups C-Suite technical and practice management executives sharing a compelling technical vision leading to Partners committing to building new practices based on Microsoft’s technologies
• Relationship Building. Proven track record of building deep technical relationships with senior IT executives in large or highly strategic accounts.
• Experience in managing various stakeholder relationships to get consensus on solution/projects.
• Problem Solving. Ability to solve Startups and ISVs technical problems through cloud technologies
• Collaboration and Communication. Acknowledged for driving decisions collaboratively, resolving conflicts and ensuring follow through with exceptional verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to orchestrate, lead, and influence virtual teams, ensuring successful implementation of startups and ISVs projects.
• Presentation skills with a high degree of comfort with both large and small audiences (Senior Executives, IT management, Administrators and Developers).

Method of Application
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Note

• Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer.
• All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.