Data Center Operations Director
About the job
The Data Center Operations Director (People Manager) in Dammam, Saudi Arabia leads Microsoft Cloud Operations & Innovation (CO+I) datacenter operations, delivering core infrastructure and foundational technologies that power services such as Bing, Office 365, Xbox, OneDrive, and Microsoft Azure. Operating within a global portfolio of more than 100 datacenters and 1 million servers serving over 1 billion customers and 20 million businesses in 90+ countries, the role emphasizes environmental sustainability, optimization, and continuous evolution to meet changing business demands. The position requires mission-critical service management experience and leadership of a diverse technical team, with responsibility for end-to-end service compliance, quality, client satisfaction, and adherence to SLAs/OLAs. The director documents and aligns dependencies, supplier contracts, success metrics, and readiness criteria; reviews SLAs, KPIs, and OKRs to drive efficiency across IT and Critical Environment (CE) services; and partners cross-functionally on global and regional initiatives including environmental health and safety, risk assessments, and certifications. The role manages/supports budget alignment (including planning and demand cost forecasting), communicates implications of service management issues, and plans work with business partners to maintain datacenter availability, safety, and security in accordance with EHS run books. Responsibilities include service delivery leadership, incident participation for Sev 1/Sev 2 bridges with approval of root cause analysis and postmortem reporting, sharing best practices to mitigate recurrence of issues, enabling pilot programs and task forces, ensuring appropriate staffing and required training, and empowering teams through visibility and collaboration with regional/global management. The director removes barriers to agility, maintains a broad perspective to incorporate diverse viewpoints, establishes a culture of safety, quality, and customer obsession, enables cross-organization strategies, delegates effectively to build future leaders, and recognizes team successes. Ownership includes accountability for service quality, completeness, and customer experience; resolving or escalating unaddressed issues; communicating risks, dependencies, and budget implications to business leaders; and modeling accountability and morale. Background check compliance (Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and biennially) is required. Benefits may include industry-leading healthcare, educational resources, discounts, savings and investments, parental leave, generous time away, giving programs, and networking opportunities.
