Cloud Solution Architect (Data&AI/ISV) Full-time

Join our team and be at the forefront of innovation with Microsoft! We’re looking for a dynamic individual who excels in:

• Understanding Partner Needs: You’ll have the opportunity to gather insights directly from partners, diving deep into their technical preferences, business requirements, and the competitive landscape.
• Solution Mapping: Utilize your expertise to align architecture and digital transformation solutions with the strategic business outcomes of our partners.
• Relationship Building: Expand your network by developing meaningful connections with partner architects, technical specialists, and decision-makers.
• Leadership: Guide your team members to prioritize exceptional partner experiences through efficient delivery.
• Performance Optimization: Advise our partners on best practices to optimize their performance with Microsoft technologies.
• Competitive Analysis: Use your industry knowledge to identify Microsoft’s competitive advantages and lead persuasive conversations with partners and customers
• Innovation: Contribute new ideas to enhance our intellectual property, technologies, and processes, ensuring we stay ahead of the curve for our designated partners.
• Collaboration and Sharing: Share your strategic technical insights and ideas across internal Microsoft teams and communities, leveraging your thorough knowledge of our products and their place in the market.

Responsibilities:

Business Impact

• Identifies growth opportunities: Utilizes knowledge of Microsoft’s and competitors’ products, services, and value propositions in customer/partner conversations.
• Increases consumption: Aligns with Customer Success Account Management and other team members on customer/partner priorities to drive growth via cost optimization, operational excellence, and security.
• Drives architecture design: Conducts resiliency reviews and technical optimization leading to increased customer/partner usage and consumption.
• Ensures application resiliency: Aims for minimal points of failure in customer/partner applications.
• Provides thought leadership: Offers consultancy in technical solution design, development, and deployment, supporting customers/partners throughout implementation.
• Anticipates technical blockers: Proactively works to resolve issues accelerating consumption and solution implementations.
• Applies broad knowledge: Meets business and IT requirements by leveraging a wide range of Microsoft solutions.
• Shapes customer requirements: Enhances and refines customer needs to better fit Microsoft solutions.
• Advises on best practices: Guides customers/partners to operate and optimize performance in line with Microsoft’s recommendations.
• Applies governance and risk management: Adheres to quality assurance standards, communicates, and minimizes risks while ensuring solution excellence.
• Maintains pipeline hygiene: Uses standard tools for accurate opportunity, milestone execution, and pipeline management.
• Leverages competitive knowledge: Understands industry trends and competitor solutions, positioning Microsoft’s strengths to win over customers/partners.

Partner Centricity

• Partner Engagement: Actively listens, challenges respectfully, and presents insights and alternatives to guide partners in the right direction.
• Team Guidance: Leads team members to focus on delivering an efficient and seamless customer/partner experience.
• Success Conditions: Supports defining success metrics for partners and anticipates needs to improve their experience and value realization.
• Insight Gathering: Collects feedback on technical preferences and business needs to map solutions to partner outcomes.
• Voice of the Partner / Customer: Drives new feedback and insights across internal teams and represents customer/partner interests to shape Microsoft’s products and services.
• Relationship Development: Builds and enhances relationships with cpartner architects, technical specialists, TDMs, and stakeholders.
• Solution Demonstration: Addresses partner requirements with technical architectures and validates solutions through collaborative design sessions.
• Partner Success Alignment: Understands and aligns work with the Partner success plan to meet partner/customer needs.
• Skilling Support: Acts as a trusted technical advisor to facilitate discussions, enable operational health, and close customer skill gaps through knowledge transfer.

Technical Leadership

• Develops Learning Plan: Proactively creates a technical and professional learning plan with manager support.
• Role Model: Demonstrates effective technical readiness and mentors less experienced colleagues on both technical and non-technical concepts.
• Participates in Events: Engages in development opportunities like Ready, Build, Ignite, and external technical community events to share knowledge.
• Shares Insights: Provides strategic technical input to internal teams and the larger Microsoft community, leveraging deep knowledge of Microsoft products.
• Innovates IP: Generates ideas for improvements to intellectual property, technologies, and processes for customers/partners.
• Drives IP Reuse: Identifies opportunities for IP reuse, best practice sharing, and consumption acceleration.
• Identifies Gaps: Proactively communicates gaps in delivery to leadership and develops new IP to address these gaps.

Qualifications:

Required/minimum qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, or related field AND 4+ years experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, information technology (IT) consulting/support, systems administration, network operations, software development/support, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting OR equivalent experience.

Additional or preferred qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, or related field AND 8+ years experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, information technology (IT) consulting/support, systems administration, network operations, software development/support, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting OR Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, or related field AND 6+ years experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting OR equivalent experience. Technical Certification in Cloud (e.g., Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google, security certifications). 4+ years experience working on technical projects. 4+ years experience working in a customer-facing role (e.g., internal and/or external).

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form .

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.