Principal Product Manager

Overview The Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform (MDEP) brings Microsoft platform capabilities into an AOSP-based, broad device ecosystem. The MDEP Product Management team works across engineering, product, design, partner, and commercial organizations to define platform direction, translate customer and partner needs into product priorities, and deliver a coherent experience across devices and services.

We are seeking a Principal Product Manager to shape and influence the long-term direction of MDEP.

This person will lead complex, cross-company product strategy, establish alignment with key Microsoft platform and service organizations, and define durable, multi-year product priorities and desired outcomes that connect customer needs, partner commitments, technical architecture, engineering investments, and business priorities.

They will partner closely with release leadership, which owns release planning, sequencing, and execution.

The ideal candidate is a product leader and systems thinker who can turn ambiguity into a compelling product direction, broker difficult One Microsoft decisions, and influence senior stakeholders across organizational boundaries. They will anticipate customer, market, and technology shifts; frame high-consequence choices; and balance long-term platform vision with near-term execution.

Success will be demonstrated through a differentiated and broadly understood strategy, a credible outcome-oriented roadmap, strong cross-company alignment, improved product and business outcomes, and increased confidence among customers, partners, and internal stakeholders.

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.

Responsibilities

• Help define and influence a clear, multi-year product vision and strategy for MDEP, including target customers, priority scenarios, differentiated value, strategic principles, and the role of MDEP within the broader Microsoft ecosystem.
• Identify unmet and unarticulated customer needs in highly complex scenarios through direct engagement, quantitative and qualitative analysis, market research, competitive intelligence, industry trends, and partner feedback.
• Use data and responsible AI-enabled methods to synthesize customer feedback and market intelligence, identify significant product opportunities, and inform product scenarios and long-term investment priorities.
• Translate business goals, customer and partner requirements, market shifts, and technical opportunities into product principles, portfolio priorities, requirements, and investment strategies.
• Frame high-consequence strategic choices, tradeoffs, and recommendations for senior leadership with clear assumptions, decision criteria, alternatives, resource requirements, lifecycle costs, risks, and expected outcomes.
• Own and steer an integrated, multi-year product roadmap that connects strategic themes to capabilities, architecture, platform dependencies, releases, milestones, investment decisions, and measurable outcomes.
• Establish a transparent prioritization approach across a portfolio of investments, balancing foundational platform work, security and compliance, customer commitments, partner requirements, reliability, product quality, cost efficiency, and innovation.
• Partner with engineering, design, architecture, and program leaders to define product experiences, connect design and technical choices to the product vision, and improve the sequencing, readiness, and execution of roadmap investments.
• Lead scenario walkthroughs, early-adopter validation, reference-configuration exercises, and product reviews to proactively identify system friction, integration gaps, risks, and contingencies before broad adoption.
• Build and leverage strong working relationships with relevant Microsoft identity, security, device management, cloud, communications, application, developer, commerce, and other platform organizations.
• Shape and broker complex One Microsoft strategies by representing MDEP requirements and scenarios in cross-company planning, architecture, and roadmap discussions and clarifying shared ownership, integration boundaries, service dependencies, and platform commitments.
• Anticipate cross-team dependencies, gaps, and risks; prevent organizational drift; and drive timely executive decisions and mitigation plans before issues affect commitments, delivery, or customer outcomes.
• Develop a deep understanding of customer, OEM, ODM, silicon partner, developer, independent software vendor, and solution-provider scenarios through direct engagement and collaboration with field and partner teams.
• Drive strategic collaboration with Product Marketing, Business Planning, Engineering, and go-to-market teams to connect product capabilities with release criteria, positioning, value proposition, packaging, monetization, adoption, usage, retention, and market-expansion plans.
• Define comprehensive success criteria and incorporate product health, security, quality, adoption, partner readiness, customer satisfaction, retention, business impact, cost of goods sold, and delivery performance into product decisions.
• Provide product leadership throughout the lifecycle, including opportunity definition, product planning, development, release, adoption, growth, maintenance, upgrades, sustaining strategy, and end-of-life planning.
• Communicate product strategy, roadmap, priorities, decisions, and changes clearly and credibly to executive, technical, business, customer, partner, analyst, and industry audiences.
• Lead through influence, resolve competing priorities, and establish durable operating mechanisms that create clarity, generate energy, and build shared accountability across a complex matrixed organization.
• Mentor product managers and raise the quality of product strategy, decision-making, customer engagement, and roadmap practices across the organization.

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree AND 8+ years experience in product/service/program management or software development.
• OR equivalent experience.

Additional or preferred qualifications

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

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
• 12+ years of software engineering experience building cloud-scale distributed systems.
• Any experience with Android Platform Development.
• Proven experience designing large-scale platform services, APIs, and data-intensive systems.
• Experience with AI/ML platforms, LLM orchestration, RAG, agent frameworks, or intelligent systems.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, reliability, observability, security, privacy, and cloud architecture.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction and drive alignment across multiple teams, organizations, and disciplines without direct authority.
• Solid customer obsession with a proven track record of translating ambiguous customer or business challenges into scalable engineering solutions.
• Growth mindset with a passion for continuous learning, innovation, and adoption of emerging AI technologies.
• Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to engineers, product leaders, and executive stakeholders.
• Proven ability to bal