Cloud Solution Architect - Azure Core - Microsoft Corporation

Azure is the most comprehensive, innovative and flexible cloud platform today and Microsoft is hiring professionals that will drive customer cloud adoption within the most important companies in the market. We are always learning. Insatiably curious. We lean into uncertainty, take risks, and learn quickly from our mistakes. We build on each other's ideas because we are better together. We stand in awe of what humans dare to achieve and are motivated every day to empower others to do more and achieve more through our technology and innovation. Together we make a difference. In the Customer Success team we are looking for people with a passion for delivering customer success working with Microsoft's strategic partners. As a Cloud Solution Architect you will work with our strategic partners to enable them to achieve their customer outcomes, based on their investments in Microsoft technology. Leveraging your technical subject matter expertise you will lead technical conversations with partners to drive value from their MS investments, including identifying resolutions to issues blocking customer success projects. This opportunity will allow you to accelerate your career growth, honing your technical and collaboration skills, and deepening your cloud expertise. 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. We are currently looking for **Cloud Solution Architect - Azure Core** professionals to join our teams across various business groups, for varying customer sizes, in our enterprise, regulated, and partner services organizations. By applying to this role, you will be considered for multiple opportunities within Microsoft across the United States including locations beyond where the role is posted. This role is flexible in that you can work up to 50% from home. Travel percentages will very according to role. **Responsibilities** **Customer Centricity** + Gathers customer/partner insights (e.g., feedback around technical preferences, environments, business needs) and leverages these insights and existing plans to map solutions with customer/partner business outcomes. Acts as the voice of the customer (VOC)/partner by driving awareness of existing feedback, insights, and resources with internal teams to add and prioritize. Shares customer success stories with the wider internal team. + Identifies and begins developing impactful relationships with internal teams and customer and partner technical specialists during initial preparation and ramp-up stages. Proposes viable solutions based on specific technical products. Demonstrates complex concepts, and proves the capability of those solutions through design collaboration sessions with the customer/partner. Understands how work aligns with customer success plan and meets customer/partner needs by working with internal teams to deliver customer outcomes. Supports customer skilling by delivering as a trusted technical advisor to ensure customer readiness by facilitating technical discussions and enabling operational health and cloud readiness. Transfers knowledge to customers close customer skill gaps. + Contributes to customer satisfaction by providing a positive customer/partner experience. Demonstrates an understanding of customer/partner conditions of success. Identifies dissatisfied customers and builds remedial actions (e.g., post-mortem reviews). + Actively listens and respectfully challenges customers/partners when going in the wrong direction and escalates appropriately. **Business Impact** + Independently identifies issues and advises customers/partners to operate and optimize performance in accordance with Microsoft best practices. Escalates issues to senior team members or manager, as needed. Applies methodology and governance to minimize business and technical risks and adhere to quality assurance while ensuring excellence in contributions to design and/or delivery of solutions. Adheres to quality assurance standards and calculates risks while ensuring excellence in the design and/or delivery of solutions. Leverages standard tools to ensure accurate opportunity and milestone execution and pipeline hygiene. + Independently works with the customer to identify, determine root causes, and resolve blockers to accelerate consumption and solution implementation (e.g., by application of technical capabilities). Identifies non-technical issues and escalates for removal by the appropriate party. Applies business and technical knowledge of architecture or other Microsoft solutions to meet business and information technology (IT) requirements and resolve identified technical constraints. Helps to shape and enhance customers' requirements. + Leverages knowledge of the products, services, and value propositions of Microsoft and its competitors in customer/partner conversations to assess customer/partner needs and independently identify growth opportunities. Leverages an existing architecture approach or reference architecture to propose a solution or achieve Microsoft's Customer Promise. Identifies opportunities to expand or accelerate consumption (e.g., cloud and support). Participates in discussions around architecture design, resiliency reviews, and technical optimization that result in production deployment application and increase customer/partner usage and consumption. Independently consults on technical solution design, development, and deployment and supports the customer/partner throughout implementation to achieve value outcomes and Microsoft's Customer Promise. + Understands the competitor's architecture solutions and identifies Microsoft's strengths over competitive solutions to demonstrate Microsoft's value to customers/partners. **Technical Leadership** + Leverages development opportunities (e.g., mentorships, role-based resources, trainings, internal events such as Ready, Build, Ignite) to learn new technologies and services as advised by leadership team/manager. + Shares ideas, insights, and technical input with virtual team members using a working knowledge of specific Microsoft architectures and other relevant products. Participates in external technical community events (e.g., conferences, seminars, technical meetups, Webcasts, blogs, hackathons) and shares learnings with the internal team. + Supports research projects and contributes to scoping surveys for customers/partners to assess potential intellectual property (IP) needs or process changes. Supports identification of opportunities for IP reuse and consumption acceleration. Contributes to IP creation and updates by identifying gaps through delivery and communicating those gaps to others (e.g., Leadership, managed intellectual property [MIP], Design, and Governance). Other + Embody our culture and values **Qualifications** **Required/Minimum Qualifications** + Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, or related field AND 2+ 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 5+ 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. + 2+ years experience working in a customer-facing role (e.g., internal and/or external). + 2+ years experience working on technical projects. + Technical Certification in Cloud (e.g., Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google, security certifications). Cloud Solution Architecture IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $80,900 - $162,200 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 $105,300 - $176,900 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: US corporate pay information | Microsoft Careers (https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/us-corporate-pay.html) Microsoft will accept applications and processes offers for these roles on an ongoing basis. Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, 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 and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations (https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html) .