Microsoft

Creative Operations Manager/Senior Manager

Microsoft$86K — $169K *
Media
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Finance, Engineering, or related field with 2+ years of relevant experience, or equivalent experience.
  • 5+ years in creative operations, project management, or agency traffic management preferred.
  • Hands-on experience with work management platforms like Workfront, Asana, Wrike, or Airtable.
  • Background in an in-house creative studio or agency supporting creative professionals.
  • Experience managing project budgets and freelance rosters.
  • Familiarity with digital asset management and creative production workflows.
  • Proficiency in applying AI or automation for operational efficiencies.

Responsibilities

  • Run the intake queue, triaging requests and ensuring queue accuracy.
  • Maintain high standards for brief quality, addressing incomplete submissions early.
  • Collaborate with stakeholders to refine project scope and deliverables.
  • Assign work based on team capacity and track resource utilization.
  • Manage the work management platform, including workflow and reporting.
  • Keep project data up-to-date for accurate reporting without manual adjustments.
  • Monitor project budgets and flag variances with explanations.

Benefits

  • Comprehensive health benefits including medical, dental, and vision.
  • 401(k) plan with company match.
  • Generous paid time off and holiday policy.
  • Opportunities for professional development and growth.
  • Flexible work arrangements, including remote work options.
Full Job Description
Overview

We are hiring both a Creative Operations Manager and a Creative Operations Senior Manager

The Creative Operations Manager/Senior Manager runs the intake queue, traffics work to the right teams against real capacity, and owns the systems and reporting that keep everything visible. You are the person who knows what is in flight, who is working on it, whether it is on track, and what it will cost. When a brief arrives incomplete or a schedule is at risk, you catch it early and resolve it.

This is a hands-on role for someone who enjoys building order out of competing demands. You will work closely with creative leads, producers, and marketing stakeholders, and you will have real ownership of the tools and processes the studio depends on. We expect you to use AI-enabled tooling and automation to reduce manual work in intake, status reporting, and resourcing.

Key outcomes: a clean and current intake queue; briefs that meet standard before work begins; accurate capacity and assignment data; a reliable master schedule; and weekly reporting stakeholders trust. Success is measured by on-time delivery, cycle time, brief completeness, and the accuracy of capacity and budget reporting.

Responsibilities

Intake and brief quality
  • Run the intake queue day to day, triaging incoming requests and keeping the queue current and accurate.
  • Hold the bar on brief quality, pushing back on incomplete or unclear briefs before work is scheduled.
  • Work with requesters to sharpen scope, deliverables, and timing so projects start with a clear definition of done.

Trafficking and resourcing
  • Traffic work to the right teams and assign resources against current capacity.
  • Track utilization and surface conflicts, bottlenecks, and over-allocation before they affect delivery.
  • Partner with producers and creative leads to rebalance assignments as priorities shift.

Work management systems
  • Serve as administrator for the work management platform, owning templates, workflows, permissions, and reporting views.
  • Keep project data clean and current so reporting reflects reality without manual reconciliation.
  • Identify and implement automation and AI-enabled improvements that remove repetitive administrative work.

Schedule and dependencies
  • Maintain the master calendar across the studio's active work.
  • Map schedule dependencies across projects and flag downstream risk as dates move.

Budget tracking
  • Track project budgets against estimates and flag variance early with a clear explanation of the driver.
  • Support estimating, purchase-order processing, and invoice reconciliation in partnership with finance.

Freelance roster
  • Manage the freelance roster, including sourcing, onboarding, rate management, and performance feedback.
  • Coordinate contracts and onboarding logistics so freelance talent is productive quickly.

Reporting
  • Produce the weekly status and capacity reporting for the studio and its stakeholders.
  • Maintain operating metrics such as throughput, on-time delivery, and cycle time, and surface trends that need attention.


Qualifications

Required/minimum qualifications
  • Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Finance, Engineering, or related field AND 2+ years of marketing operations, program management, project management, or related experience OR equivalent experience.

Additional or preferred qualification
  • 5+ years of experience in creative operations, studio operations, project management, or agency traffic management, or equivalent experience.
  • Hands-on experience with a work management platform such as Workfront, Asana, Wrike, or Airtable.
  • Experience in an in-house creative studio or a creative agency, supporting designers, writers, and producers.
  • Administrator-level ownership of a work management platform, including building templates, workflows, and reports.
  • Experience with resource and capacity planning across concurrent projects and competing priorities.
  • Experience tracking project budgets and managing freelance rosters, rates, and onboarding.
  • Familiarity with digital asset management, review and approval tooling, and creative production workflow.
  • Experience applying AI or automation to reduce manual operational and reporting work.Excellent written and verbal communication, with the confidence to push back constructively on incomplete requests.


Marketing Technology IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $86,100 - $169,800 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 $113,300 - $187,400 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

Marketing Technology IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $106,400 - $203,600 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 $137,600 - $222,600 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.

About Microsoft

Microsoft is an American multinational corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells a range of software products and services. Microsoft’s devices and consumer (D&C) licensing segment licenses the Windows operating system and related software, Microsoft Office for consumers, and the Windows Phone operating system. The company’s computing and gaming hardware segment provides Xbox gaming and entertainment consoles and accessories, second-party and third-party video games, and Xbox Live subscriptions; surface devices and accessories; and Microsoft PC accessories. Its phone hardware segment offers Lumia smartphones and other non-Lumia phones. Its D&C segment provides Windows Store, Xbox Live transactions, and Windows phone store; search advertising; display advertising; Office 365 Home and Office 365 Personal; first-party video games; and other consumer products and services as well as operating retail stores. Microsoft’s commercial licensing segments license server products, including Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Studio, System Center, and related Client Access Licenses (CALs); Windows Embedded; Windows operating system; Microsoft Office for business, including Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, and related CALs; Microsoft Dynamics business solutions; and Skype. Its commercial segment offers enterprise services, including premier support services and Microsoft consulting services; commercial cloud comprising Office 365 Commercial, other Microsoft Office online offerings, Dynamics CRM Online, and Microsoft Azure; and other commercial products and online services. The company markets and distributes its products through original equipment manufacturers, distributors, and resellers, as well as online.

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Learn more about Microsoft
Size
181,000 employees
Market Cap
$1,762.4 billion
Industry
Net Income
$51.3 billion
Founded
1975
5 Year Trend
+15.5%
Revenue
$153.2 billion
NASDAQ

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