Overview

Microsoft Procurement group is part of Finance Operations (Fin Ops) organization and has a mission to deliver business value through proactive global supplier solutions that are innovative, compliant, and cost effective.

Our group is a global team of 215+ employees across 30 countries supporting 100+ geographies and facilitating billions of US dollars in annual purchases worldwide. Our team fosters a culture of innovation, operations excellence and provides great career growth opportunities with a rewarding work environment. We deliver impact by leveraging corporate supplier strategies with a business aligned compliant supplier ecosystem.

We are looking for future business leaders to join our Procurement Solutions group as a sourcing and category manager to support purchasing indirect services and primarily supporting the commercial business organization. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn about one of Microsoft’s businesses in a dynamic environment. The successful candidate will lead sourcing strategies and contract negotiations for complex purchasing categories, integrating business requirements into RFI/RFP processes and ensuring alignment with pricing, capacity, and policy compliance. They will collaborate cross-functionally within Microsoft and with suppliers to drive early engagement, define supply solutions, and execute contracts that meet business needs. Success in this role requires relationship management and cross-group collaboration to influence business decisions, driving innovation and achieving cost savings.

Come join a world class team surrounded by a diverse array of peers from various industries and backgrounds where you’ll unlock opportunities in Microsoft’s procurement of indirect services.

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 Sourcing

• Defines, maintains, and executes sourcing strategies for one or more complex projects and/or purchasing opportunities to ensure optimal cost and sufficient continuity of supply and/or service, collects relevant internal and industry data to understand business requirements, benchmarks data against relevant markets, and shares industry and category expertise across stakeholder teams to develop and execute sourcing strategies.

• Integrates business specifications for complex purchasing areas into request for information (RFI) and/or request for proposal (RFP) processes. Collaborates cross-functionally to define and manage supplier scorecard criteria (e.g., key performance indicators KPIs, Service Level Agreements SLAs), coordinates supplier performance reviews, and drives corrective actions.

• Manages contract and price negotiation activities for a single purchasing category cross-functionally and ensures that both price and capacity needs are met while also reflecting Microsoft's cross functional engagements with suppliers. Identifies cost reduction opportunities and works closely with suppliers to drive cost competitiveness.

Compliance

• Applies an end-to-end understanding of the tradeoffs between Microsoft and key suppliers to drive business impact by influencing senior managers cross-functionally, or cross-regionally to apply market intelligence and adopt practices that enable execution with consistency, accuracy, quality, and timeliness of delivery.

• Ensures adherence to policy, educates stakeholders and suppliers on policy compliance, and manages the remediation and resolution of sourcing issues. Identifies opportunities to adapt policy as needed to mitigate risk and better enable suppliers to meet business requirements.

• Ensures consistency, timeliness, quality, and accuracy of deliverables, and ensures Procurement stakeholders are aware of Service Level Agreement (SLA) and/or defined milestones and deliverables terms. Communicates delay to Procurement stakeholders and independently proposes and executes contingency measures.

Procurement and Contracts

• Processes or supports stakeholder procurement requests for complex purchasing categories via engagement and/or leveraging workflow process or technology, where applicable in support of product and service requirements.
• Executes contracts and complies with established control processes to ensure delivery and execution on contracts in alignment with business requirements. Identifies risks and roadblocks to contract execution and drives action internally and/or externally to resolve and/or escalate, as appropriate.

Stakeholder Collaboration

• Drives early business engagements for complex business areas or purchasing categories with cross-functional leadership including product design, quality, and business teams, to define and drive action on supply solutions and strategies, business requirements, optimal sourcing spend, and priorities. Shares expertise to advise cross-functional teams on sourcing decisions.

• Developing pricing and negotiation strategies for one or more complex purchasing categories, ensures that strategies clearly articulate the tradeoffs, roles, and responsibilities across parties, and gains senior executive support for strategies both internally and externally. Identifies negotiation setbacks and takes action to mitigate contract disagreements.

• Collaborates with suppliers and leads on-boarding, processes. Serves as contact point between suppliers and multiple Microsoft accounts across one or more complex purchasing categories, developing and executing supplier account plans detailing priorities and focus for the supplier relationship for the upcoming period.

Other

• Embody our culture and values

Qualifications

Required/minimum qualifications

Master's Degree in Engineering, Supply Chain, Data Analytics, Business, Finance or related field AND 3+ years experience in data science/analytics, finance, project management, supply chain, and/or operation OR Bachelor's Degree in Engineering, Supply Chain, Data Analytics, Business, Finance or related field AND 4+ years experience in data science/analytics, finance, project management, supply chain, and/or operations OR equivalent experience.

Additional or preferred qualifications

• Proven cross-functional team facilitation experience preferred.
• Experience working successfully with international businesses and understanding the intricacies and nuances of various cultures and countries.
• Analytical and strategic problem-solving capabilities in finance and business subjects.
• Proficient communication and presentation skills.

Sourcing and Category Management IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $96,500 - $188,400 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 $123,500 - $206,400 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.