Microsoft 365 Engineer

Job Description

Job Title: Microsoft 365 Engineer (Contract)

Location: India / Hybrid

Employment Type: Contract – 1 FTE

Reports To: Global Vice President of Information Technology

Herspiegel is a global life sciences consultancy that guides pharmaceutical and biotech companies through their most decisive moments—powering commercial success and expanding patient access. From early asset strategy to launch readiness and market optimization, we help clients navigate complexity and seize opportunity. Our integrated approach brings together scientific insight, evidence strategy, deep market intuition, and executional precision to ensure brands are built to lead.

Position Summary

The Microsoft 365 Engineer will be responsible for delivering critical Microsoft 365 and cloud transformation initiatives, with a primary focus on tenant consolidation, SharePoint migration and redesign, Teams governance, and M365 security and configuration improvements.

This is a hands-on delivery role required to execute complex, time-bound programmes at pace, reduce dependency on managed service providers (MSPs), and ensure the organisation achieves a secure, scalable, and consistent collaboration platform aligned to the 2026 IT roadmap. The role is pivotal to enabling rebranding activities, improving user experience, and reducing operational and security risk arising from fragmented M365 estates.

The role requires demonstrable Microsoft 365 engineering expertise, supported by relevant Microsoft certifications or equivalent professional experience.

Key Responsibilities

Microsoft 365 Tenant Consolidation

• Lead the technical delivery of multi-tenant Microsoft 365 consolidation into a single, well-governed tenant.
• Design and execute migration plans covering identities, mailboxes, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, and collaboration workloads.
• Ensure minimal disruption to users through structured migration waves, testing, and rollback planning.
• Work closely with identity and security teams to ensure tenant consolidation aligns with Zero Trust and conditional access principles.

SharePoint & Collaboration Platform Modernisation

• Lead the migration, rationalisation, and redesign of SharePoint sites and information architecture.
• Define and implement standardised site templates, permissions models, and lifecycle management controls.
• Improve discoverability, usability, and governance of collaboration content across the organisation.
• Support rebrand-related changes, including domain, naming conventions, and user-facing assets.

Microsoft Teams Governance & Optimisation

• Design and implement Teams governance standards, including team creation policies, naming conventions, retention, and lifecycle controls.
• Rationalise existing Teams sprawl and improve consistency across business units.
• Ensure Teams configuration aligns with compliance, information protection, and user experience best practices.

M365 Security, Configuration & Best Practice

• Implement M365 configuration improvements aligned to Microsoft Secure Score and industry best practice.
• Support security initiatives including conditional access refinement, MFA enforcement, data loss prevention (DLP), sensitivity labels, and audit logging.
• Reduce misconfiguration risk through standardisation, documentation, and controlled change processes.

Delivery, Documentation & Knowledge Transfer

• Work alongside MSPs and internal teams to accelerate delivery while progressively reducing external dependency.
• Produce clear technical documentation, runbooks, and handover materials to ensure sustainability post-contract.
• Provide structured knowledge transfer to internal/external IT resources, internal teams and service partners.

Decision Authority

• The Microsoft 365 Engineer is authorised to make technical and delivery decisions required to successfully execute approved Microsoft 365 initiatives, including tenant consolidation, migrations, configuration changes, and platform optimisation activities.
• The role may define and implement technical designs, migration approaches, configuration standards, and remediation actions within the scope of agreed programmes and delivery plans.
• Strategic decisions, including IT roadmap direction, budget approvals, vendor strategy, security risk acceptance, control exceptions, and material architectural changes, remain the responsibility of the Global VP of IT.
• Where proposed technical changes introduce material user impact, security risk, cost implications, or cross-programme dependencies, these are escalated for review and decision.
• The role does not have authority to approve deviations from security, compliance, or governance standards defined by the organisation.

Stakeholder Collaboration

• Partner closely with IT leadership, security, legal/compliance, and business stakeholders to align delivery with organisational priorities.
• Act as a technical authority for M365-related initiatives, providing pragmatic guidance and risk-based recommendations.
• Support change management and user communications where required, in collaboration with IT Operations.
• The role operates within governance, security, and operational frameworks defined by IT leadership and collaborates closely with IT Operations, Cyber Security, and GRC roles to ensure compliant delivery.

Required Skills & Experience

Experience

• Proven hands-on experience delivering Microsoft 365 tenant consolidation projects in complex or multi-entity environments.
• Strong background in SharePoint Online migration, redesign, and information architecture.
• Demonstrable experience implementing Microsoft Teams governance at scale.
• Experience working in regulated or security-conscious environments is strongly preferred.

Technical Skills

• Deep expertise in Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Teams, Entra ID).
• Strong understanding of identity, access management, and conditional access concepts.
• Familiarity with Microsoft security and compliance tooling (Purview, Defender, Secure Score).
• Experience working alongside MSPs and managing technical delivery across internal and external teams.

Professional Attributes

• Delivery-focused, pragmatic, and comfortable operating in time-critical programmes.
• Strong documentation and communication skills.
• Able to work independently with minimal supervision while aligning to strategic direction.
• Risk-aware mindset with a focus on secure-by-design outcomes.

Education, Qualifications & Certifications

Education

• Bachelor’s in Information Technology, Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline (preferred).
• Equivalent professional experience will be considered in lieu of formal education.

Professional Certifications

The following certifications are strongly preferred and demonstrate the depth of technical expertise required to deliver the scope of this role effectively:

• Microsoft Certified: Microsoft 365 Administrator Expert
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert

Additional / Desirable Certifications

One or more of the following certifications would be considered an advantage:

• Microsoft Certified: Teams Administrator Associate
• Microsoft Certified: SharePoint Administrator Associate
• Microsoft Certified: Identity and Access Administrator Associate
• Microsoft Certified: Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals (SC-900) or higher

Governance & Security Awareness (Desirable)

• Experience working within ISO 27001, SOC 2, or similar governance-aligned environments.
• Familiarity with security-by-design and Zero Trust principles in Microsoft cloud environments.

Why This Role Is Required

This role is essential to delivering tenant consolidation and collaboration platform modernisation within the 2026 timeframe. Without dedicated engineering capacity, delivery would be delayed into 2027, increasing MSP dependency, operational cost, security exposure, and user fragmentation.

The role provides immediate, specialist capability to execute high-impact initiatives that cannot be delivered at sufficient pace through existing capacity or MSP-only models.