As governments, industry and consumers continue to expand their use of cloud services, the need to establish a strong basis for consensus and trust between cloud providers, cloud customers and policy makers is increasingly important. Standards and open-source solutions are part of the foundational mechanisms that enable globally recognized consensus solutions at the cross section of technology and policy making. Microsoft has a long-standing commitment to participation in international and regional standards organizations as well as open-source projects that reach across every facet of the information technology industry.

Even though you will be based in Western or Central Europe, you will be joining a global team of senior technical professionals called Corporate Standards Group (CSG) reporting to Microsoft’s US headquarters in Redmond, WA. The team develops consensus solutions at the cross-section of latest technology and policy/regulations. CSG partners closely within the company with product and business groups, policy, legal and government affairs teams, and others as appropriate in the development of standards, codes of conduct, open-source solutions and certification-related outcomes supporting Microsoft’s business. With broad and deep experience at the intersection of technology, policy and business, the team consists of senior industry and technical leaders in their respective countries and regions.

 Your role involves development of standards and open specifications in rule-based, multi-stakeholder environments. You will work closely with other team members developing similar and related consensus solutions in open-source communities in order to develop harmonized open-source and open specifications that work together to address customer, partner and regulatory needs. The global nature of the team means that you will have the flexibility to work from home unless you are travelling to work with internal or external stakeholders.

 Responsibilities

1. Represent Microsoft in development of standards, codes of conduct and other open specifications in European or global forums along with participants from other stakeholders such as large or medium enterprises, government organizations, policy think tanks or research organizations.
2. Ability to identify future challenges at the inter of new technology and policy making affecting company’s key businesses and to develop consensus solutions that are persisted as standards and specifications
3. Collaborate with other standards professionals inside and outside the company, representatives of the company’s customers and partners, as well as Microsoft teams in charge of product development, sales, and government affairs to identify the challenges facing the company as well as opportunities for standards development.
4. The ability to articulate, define, and drive standards strategies for Microsoft.
5. Internally advocate for issues or actions that affect Microsoft’s ability to successfully deliver its products globally. Work with corporate resources such as legal counsel, public policy, and government affairs teams to provide guidance for the company to adopt optimal strategies.

 Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent is required, postgraduate qualifications strongly preferred.
• Demonstrable experience in a similar industry
• Experience in multi-stakeholder standards setting (or similar consensus-driven processes), including technical engagement activities with diverse stakeholder
• Knowledge of latest technology and specifications for use in the cloud, on the edge and in IoT devices is required.
• Excellent communicator (both written and verbal), with exceptional interpersonal and negotiating skills.
• Exemplary attention to detail, strong project management skills, exceptional political and diplomatic skills and the ability to cultivate relationships with key stakeholders both internally and externally.

 Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of the standards-setting process and standards governance, and a clear understanding of how legal, political, and business environments affect standardization decisions.
• Strong technical expertise in ICT industry, including an understanding of how complex enterprise-grade software systems are envisioned, designed, built, deployed and used. Programming experience in platform and enterprise-grade distributed systems preferred.
• Ability to learn new and complex platform technologies, including those from Microsoft, its partners, and competitors.
• Familiarity with open-source development and community process and practices is a plus.
• Understanding of the need of enterprise customers and partners, awareness of the current and future dynamics of the IT industry, and an ability to translate this knowledge into actionable strategies is highly desirable.