Senior Corporate Counsel (Infrastructure Legal Affairs)

Overview Overview

We are looking for a dynamic, highly motivated, and experienced commercial and real estate attorney to support Microsoft’s global cloud expansion.

The Infrastructure Legal Affairs team supporting Microsoft's Cloud Operations + Innovation division has an immediate opening for an attorney to support land acquisition, leasing, and development related real estate documents for expansion of Microsoft’s datacenters in Europe, Middle East and Africa. This is a unique opportunity for an attorney to help Microsoft build hyperscale and AI infrastructure.

Cloud Operations + Innovation is the team behind the world-leading datacenters at the foundation of Microsoft online products and services, including AI tools such as Copilot. Our focus is on smart growth, high efficiency, and delivering a trusted experience to customers and partners worldwide. This is a fast-growing division that is investing in datacenter capabilities and energy projects around the world that can truly make a difference.

Responsibilities Responsibilities

The Main Responsibilities For This Role Will Include

• Drafting and negotiating complex commercial agreements in support of cloud and datacenter infrastructure, including real estate acquisitions and property development agreements, colocation leases, and related transactions.
• Managing outside counsel in colocation leasing, land acquisition, and development, including due diligence, purchase agreements, and post-acquisition development issues.
• Creating new contract models, templates, and process improvements to improve quality, amplify scale, and reduce contract cycle time for datacenter infrastructure expansion.
• Collaborating with team members including zoning and permitting, easements, development agreements, networking and power agreements and across organizational boundaries, including engineering, finance, marketing, government and public affairs, and communications teams.
• Developing trusted advisor relationships with business clients and executives.

Qualifications Required Qualifications

• Law degree with relevant academic credentials.
• Practicing certificate in the United Kingdom or any EU member state.
• Extensive experience at a law firm or an in-house legal department.
• Relevant experience leading real estate and other complex commercial transactions in EMEA, ideally with experience in large infrastructure projects, datacenters, real estate lease, purchase and development agreements, and/or international transactions.
• Demonstrable experience developing, negotiating, and documenting complex, multi-party transactions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Desire and ability to work as part of a diverse and inclusive team.
• Keen business sense and ability to think creatively.
• Interest in operational excellence, and the desire to think strategically and act decisively to enable process improvement.
• The ability to deliver impact through superior collaboration. To be a flexible and analytical thinker able to quickly and accurately identify legal issues in a complex environment and to develop solutions by exercising confident judgment in ambiguous situations.
• Results orientation, customer focus, a commitment to providing the highest quality client service, and a desire to develop trusted advisor relationships with business clients.
• Capability to work efficiently, meet demanding deadlines in a fast-paced environment, prioritize workflow, and adjust to frequent fluctuations in workload and business imperatives.
• A passion for working in the technology sector and including a keen interest in applying technology, including AI, to improve legal work and efficiency.
• Fluency in either French, German, Spanish or other European languages is not mandatory but may be beneficial.

#CELA

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.