TARUN CHANDRA SIMHA MAGANUR

• Education Devices (Vendor) at Microsoft, Managed 10 member team of engineers, developers, and 4 test engineers, ensuring efficient collaboration and delivery of exceptional products
• Led daily stand-ups, sprint planning, sprint reviews, and retrospectives, fostering collaborative and transparent team environment
• Supported and coached development teams in self-organization, cross-functionality, and continuous improvement
• Identified and removed impediments to maximize team productivity and delivery of high-quality software
• Collaborated closely with product owners to prioritize and refine product backlog, ensuring alignment with business objectives
• Collaborated with stakeholders to define project scope, goals, and deliverables, ensuring clear communication and alignment
• Acted as point of escalation for customers, C-Level executives of ISVs.
• Published 150% more Apps than last year.
• Maintained open communication by presenting regular updates on project status to customers
• Identified program obstacles and communicated possible impacts to team
• Coached team members on productivity strategies to accomplish challenging goals
• Facilitated Scrum framework – sprint planning, backlog grooming, daily scrums, sprint reviews, and sprint retrospectives
• Collaborated with product owners, team members, technologists, and other scrum masters to define solutions and drive progress
• Led sprint reviews and planning meetings to promote full team engagement
• Managed product backlog and supported Scrum framework for monthly sprint releases
• Monitored and tracked project progress to support timely completion
• Created and implemented contingency plans to address potential risks
• Established and enforced project timelines and deadlines
• Generated reports for IT project progress and performance

• Planned, designed, and scheduled phases for large projects.
• Monitored project performance to identify areas of improvement and make adjustments.
• Coordinated with cross-functional teams to resolve project issues and mitigate risks.
• Achieved project deadlines by coordinating with contractors to manage performance.
• People/Performance Management – Supervising a team of managers under me and in turn their reportees and enhancing the performance of a team of Cloud Services Technical Advisors & Support Engineers in the areas of customer satisfaction, technical expertise, collaboration, and timeliness of support delivery. Managing about 5 managers who have close to 70 resources between them.
• Business/Operation/Reviews - Drive culture of accountability within team maximizing team efficiency and ensuring alignment with Managers and team.
• Team Readiness & Development - Identify and implement solutions / capabilities that increases TA's/SE's effectiveness and ensure career development, succession and retention plans are in place for the team with a personal development plan for each individual tracked with regular connects / 1:1s
• Work Environment - Increase / maintain health and collaboration of workgroup and effectiveness as People Manager.
• Resource Management - Lead and drive Headcount Planning/Hiring/Financials/Scheduling/Availability/TA Travel etc. for Technical Advisors and Support Engineers·
• Business & Stake Holder Connect - As a key partner of the business supported, connect regularly with Regional Stake Holders.
• Daily Ops & Quality Assurance - Monitor daily operations and ensure they are complying with daily operational rigor.

• Azure Startups (Vendor) at, Managed multiple Azure support and Win 11 SE development programs at various capacities, few highlights of my role are as follows -
• Successfully designed and implemented support programs for Azure customers, ranging from enterprise customers to startups at different stages of growth
• Collaborated closely with CEOs/CTOs of enterprise and startup customers, as well as technology leaders, to strategize Azure adoption and ensure customer success
• Established strategic partnerships with Microsoft engineering and product teams, identifying product shortcomings and working together to fix and improve them
• Developed the first-ever Azure Optimization report for customers, later contributing to the conceptualization of "Azure Advisor" in its early stages
• Helped provision and unblock various Compute SKU Quotas and Azure ML studio to customers
• Helped with Subscription management on Azure for Startups customers
• Drove plans for tooling, products, content, and process improvements in collaboration with support and engineering teams, resulting in a significant reduction in support ticket volume
• Analyzed complex business and systems processes, incorporating closed-loop feedback management to address customer issues promptly and effectively
• Created feedback loops for end users, designing surveys, user feedback forms, and leveraging analytics tools to gather insights and enhance user experience
• Led and managed outcomes, including escalation and risk mitigation, by developing plans and leveraging data-driven insights
• Maintained clear, concise, and transparent communication with the team, executives, and diverse stakeholders through regular connects and meetings
• Utilized a structured approach, leveraging data, metrics, and analysis to identify problems and develop effective solutions
• Developed customer retention strategies, identifying at-risk customers, and implementing measures to increase their loyalty to the Azure platform
• Provided guidance and support to customers throughout their Azure journey, covering the entire spectrum from building and deploying to maintaining their Azure solutions
• Led high-priority events during product launches, cutoffs, and go-live scenarios, ensuring smooth and successful outcomes
• Managed critical situation (Critsit) communications during outages and meltdowns, effectively coordinating efforts to minimize impact and restore services promptly
• Forecasted technical issues by analyzing customer service requests, providing valuable insights to both customers and internal product teams
• Led capacity management discussions on behalf of customers, resolving high-priority capacity issues and working closely with internal teams to ensure operability and availability of specialized SKUs
• Delivered architecture and design reviews, Azure account sanitation, governance sessions, onboarding guidance, implementation assistance, and best practices to customers by leveraging internal resources
• Improved customer experience on Microsoft communities, forums, and GitHub, increasing adoption and fostering a vibrant and supportive community.

• Was part of Qualcomm’s Infra team and had led efforts in bringing IT Service desk in house from outsourced vendor
• Was instrumental in interviewing, selecting, and training candidates to build strong and self-reliant Service desk team (team size – 12 support engineers) in Hyderabad location
• Acted as Subject Matter Expert (SME) on various support aspects and internal applications, and was also single point of contact for executive escalations in Asia region.
• Wrote KB articles for Process improvement

• Support Engineer for PepsiCo and Veolia waters.

Pilot Project: Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory Support Engineer for AT&T.

• For HP Enterprise Support.