Cloud Solution Architect

Overview

With over 17,000 employees worldwide, the mission of the Small Medium Enterprises and Channel (SME&C), organization is to empower customers to accelerate business value through differentiated customer experiences that leverage Microsoft's products and services, ignited by our people and culture. Come join Small Medium Enterprises and Channel (SME&C), and help us build a future where customers achieve their business outcomes faster with technology that does more.

We are looking for a Cloud Solution Architect (CSA) specializing in Copilot and Power Platforms. The Cloud Solution Architect (CSA) is a trusted technical advisor responsible for helping customers design, deploy, adopt, and optimize Microsoft Copilot and Power Platforms. The CSA partners with customers, account teams, engineering, and solution specialists to accelerate customers Copilot and Power Platforms journey.

Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Responsibilities

The Cloud Solution Architect will proactively identify and anticipate new cross-solution opportunities for Consumption, Usage & Unified expansion (especially Enhanced Solutions) at scale based on business value to customer/partner and clear understanding of the Microsoft value proposition for supported platforms to empower cloud success, foster and strengthen security and resiliency, and drive AI innovation. Strategically consults with, actively listens to, and respectfully challenges customers/partners, building trust to then advocate for alternative architectures/solutions/approaches that shape and/or enhance customer requirements. Identifies, anticipates, and evaluates industry trends (e.g., customer industry verticals, information technology [IT] industry), gathers customer/partner insights (e.g., feedback around technical preferences, environments, business needs, competitive landscape), and maps both existing and novel architecture and digital transformation solutions to customer/partner business outcomes. Proactively anticipates and captures opportunities in appropriate systems, processes, and tools, working collaboratively across the organization to execute on opportunities aligned with Microsoft's Customer Engagement Model.

Anticipates, identifies, escalates, and mitigates blockers using appropriate tools and processes to accelerate solution deployment, value realization and usage/consumption for complex customers/scenarios. Proactively applies broad business, technical, industry, and/or enterprise knowledge to architecture or support projects to meet business and information technology (IT) requirements and resolve identified constraints.

Operates according to required operational excellence and proven practice standards throughout all sales stages/activities/tools of record (e.g., pipeline updates, time tracking). Orchestrates and collaborates across Microsoft and customer/partner teams through on-strategy delivery to achieve customer/partner objectives and increase customer/partner satisfaction. Proactively anticipates and manages business and technical risks, adapts methodology and applies governance principles to identify, communicate, and minimize business and technical risks. Executes work in compliance with industry and Microsoft guidelines and procedures. Continuously prioritizes among competing demands in their work and identifies where impact occurs with customers, ensuring alignment with business priorities and goals.

Customer Centricity

Proactively identifies and/or translates customer/partner problems into industry solutions aligned with Microsoft product and platform strategy, creates or improves an existing business model, and explains why and/or how they meet customer/partner outcomes and return on investment (ROI) goals (e.g., via proof of concept, minimally viable product [MVP], rapid prototype) relative to competitive offerings. Proactively helps the customer/partner accelerate their adoption and use of Microsoft product/platform strategy-aligned (cross-solution area) solutions. Builds relationships with, and provides direction to technical decision makers (TDMs) up to the C-suite level, and builds the bridge between TDMs and business decision makers (BDMs). Leads and elevates interactions as needed with customers/partners' Chief Information Office (CIO), Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), and other C-level (CXO) roles to bridge understanding of security, compliance, operational and risk requirements across BDMs, TDMs, CIO and CISO teams, appropriately engaging additional subject matter experts when deeper expertise is required.

Proactively acts as the voice of the customer/partner, sharing ideas, feedback, insights, success stories and strategic/technical input with Engineering teams, Product Offerings teams and internal communities leveraging relevant insights from feedback tools and systems. Identifies and aggregates patterns of feedback across customers/partners/territories/industries, and leverages them with relevant industry perspective to develop strategic and actionable insights. Presents business cases to program managers to advocate for and influence product roadmaps, decision making, and bug fix prioritization, and own and drive initiatives as appropriate.

Drives self and guides other team members to focus on customer/partner experience through efficient delivery and ensuring a seamless and connected customer experience. Drives the realization of customer/partner conditions of success by leveraging an understanding of customer goals. Anticipates, addresses, and leads customer confidence calls to resolve customer/partner dissatisfaction and unmet needs, and creates and executes strategies to improve customer experience, value realization, and acceleration of transformation.

Technical Leadership

Leverages market insights and demand signals to assist leadership in identifying relevant areas in which to drive up-skilling and/or accreditations based on demand. Role models technical readiness, both depth-aligned to solution area priorities and breadth-aligned to Customer Success Unit (CSU)/corporate initiatives (e.g., security, resilience, AI), and influences team to drive their own technical readiness. Acts as a mentor, leading readiness and upskilling activities in the team/organization by educating colleagues on technical and non-technical concepts and sharing proven practices.

Leads, mentors, and may assemble virtual teams (v-teams) around technologies and customer/partner challenges, sharing ideas, insights, and strategic, technical input with technical teams, internal communities across the field, and the larger v-team across Microsoft using knowledge of Microsoft architectures and their context in the competitive landscape. Demonstrates deep industry knowledge and drives recognition for Microsoft solutions by leading presentations and engagements with external and internal audiences (e.g., Tech Connect, Build, Ignite) Contributes to and collaborates on intellectual property (IP) and proactively identifies patterns where no IP exists (e.g., CoPilot and AI scenarios) to help build scalable and repeatable models. Participates in and leads external technical and non-technical community events (e.g., conferences, seminars, technical meetups, webcasts, blogs, hackathons) that elevate the

Microsoft brand and shares learnings across internal teams.

Proactively identifies and anticipates gaps through delivery, communicates those gaps to and influences relevant team members and internal/external stakeholders, and connects gaps and patterns across business and technology areas that drive changes and improvements to products, intellectual property (IP) (both existing and new), technologies, and/or processes/practices that enable solutions to scale across customers. Develops and contributes to modifications of Microsoft's structured frameworks and methodologies. Proactively provides thought leadership and innovation to customers/partners and internal communities at the worldwide level.

Qualifications

Required/minimum qualifications

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, Liberal Arts, 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, Liberal Arts, 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, Liberal Arts, or related field AND 6+ years experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting OR equivalent experience.

4+ years experience working in a customer-facing role (e.g., internal and/or external).

4+ years experience working on technical projects.

Technical Certification in Cloud (e.g., Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google, security certifications).

Copilot and Power Platforms

Cloud Solution Architecture 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:

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. (