Cloud Solution Architect - Azure Infrastructure at Microsoft

• The Cloud Solution Architect role involves gathering customer insights, mapping architecture, and proposing digital transformation solutions based on Microsoft technologies. The role requires coaching team members to focus on customer experience through efficient delivery, driving adherence to Microsoft standards and recommended practices, and providing a holistic perspective of customer challenges and competitor architectures. The role is within the CSA Global Delivery team. It is a centralized group consisting of both full-time employees (FTEs) and Partner CSAs dedicated to enhancing the customer's experience with Microsoft as they transition to hybrid/public cloud solutions. We achieve this by offering our customers value through adaptable and efficient delivery methods, all underpinned by standardized processes.

This role requires

• prior experience on virtualization technologies such as Hyper-V, Azure Stack and/or VMware solutions.
• Azure Core Services: Compute, Networking, Storage
• Cloud Security: Azure Security best practices
• Experience with Customer and Partner Engagement
• This role is flexible in that you can work up to 50% from home.
• 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.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, or related field AND strong 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 previous experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting;
• Technical Certification in Cloud Technologies (e.g., Azure, AWS, GCP etc).
• Proof of Working on Hybrid Cloud engagements

Responsibilities

Customer Centricity

• Gathers customer/partner insights (e.g., feedback around technical preferences, environments, business needs, competitive landscape), and maps architecture and digital transformation solutions to customer/partner business outcomes. Acts as the voice of the customer (VOC)/partner by driving new feedback, insights, and resources across internal teams to add and prioritize. Represents the customer/partner to internal teams (e.g., Engineering) to shape products and services by providing insights across the territory. Advocates for the customer/partner at all opportunities and shares customer success stories with the wider internal team.
• Guides other team members to focus on customer/partner experience through efficient delivery and ensuring a seamless and connected customer experience. Supports definition of customer/partner conditions of success. Anticipates customer/partner dissatisfaction and unmet needs and executes strategies to improve experience, value realization, and acceleration of customer transformation.
• Actively listens and respectfully challenges customers/partners when going in the wrong direction, presents insights and alternatives, and takes action appropriately.

Business Impact

• Drives customer/partner relationships to anticipate, identify, escalate, and work to resolve technical blockers to accelerate consumption and solution implementations (e.g., by application of technical capabilities). Routes non-technical issues for removal by the appropriate party. Applies broad business and technical knowledge across various architecture or other Microsoft solutions to meet business and information technology (IT) requirements and resolve identified technical constraints. Shapes and enhances customers' requirements.
• Proactively uses knowledge of the products, services, and value propositions of Microsoft and its competitors in customer/partner conversations to identify growth opportunities based on knowledge of customer/partner needs.
• Contributes to increase in consumption and aligns with Customer Success Account Management or other Account Team members on customer/partner priorities to drive growth in consumption via cost optimization, operational excellence performance efficiency, and security. Drives architecture design, resiliency reviews, and technical optimization that result in production deployment application and increase customer/partner usage and consumption.
• Ensures that the customer/partner's application has as few points of failure as possible. Consults and provides thought leadership for technical solution design, development, and deployment and supports the customer/partner throughout implementation to achieve value outcomes and Microsoft's Customer Promise.
• Understands industry trends and the competitor's architecture solutions and identifies Microsoft's strengths over competitive solutions to drive conversations with customers/partners and convince them of solution.

Technical Leadership

• Demonstrate the capability to act as CSA Pod Lead with ability to drive planning and delivery of Pod team by engaging CSAM and ATU, manage customer relationship by conducting monthly engagement reviews and assuring quality and be accountable for capacity planning, hiring, skilling and utilization of Pod members.
• Proactively develops technical and professional learning and development plan in alignment with and support from their manager. Role models effective technical readiness. Acts as a mentor and role model to less experienced colleagues to educate them on technical and non-technical concepts. Participates in development opportunities (e.g., Ready, Build, Ignite).
• Shares ideas, insights, and strategic technical input with technical teams, internal communities across the field, and the larger virtual team across Microsoft using a thorough knowledge of specific Microsoft products and their context in the competitive landscape. Participates in external technical community events (e.g., conferences, seminars, technical meetups, Webcasts, blogs, hackathons) and shares learnings with the internal team.
• Generates new ideas for changes and improvements to existing intellectual property (IP), technologies, and processes for designated customers/partners. Drives opportunities for IP reuse, best practice sharing, and consumption acceleration. Proactively identifies gaps through delivery and communicating those gaps to others (e.g., Leadership, managed intellectual property [MIP], Design, and Governance). Applies subject matter expertise to develop new IP that fills identified gaps

Important key criteria:

• Should have potential to scale as CSA Pod Lead with ability to lead planning and delivery of Partner Pod team by engaging account team
• Manage customer relationship by conducting monthly engagement reviews and assuring quality and be accountable for capacity planning, hiring, skilling and utilization of Pod members.