Overview
In Microsoft, Small Medium Enterprise & Channel (SME&C) team, we are looking for people with a passion for delivering customer success. As a Cloud Solution Architect (CSA), Cloud & AI – Infrastructure reporting to the Cloud Solution Architect Manager you will enable SMC (Small, Medium, and Corporate) customers & Partners to achieve their business outcomes, based on their investments in Microsoft technology. Leveraging your leading technical team’s expertise, you will drive the team to ensure customers get value from their Microsoft investments.
In this role you will adapt business models, plans, and solutions to insights. Act as the voice of the customers (VOC)/partners across communities to add and prioritize. Leverages and champions an existing architecture approach to achieve agreed commitments to the customer/partner. Demonstrate and prove solutions capability and value. Apply broad technical knowledge across various architecture solutions to meet requirements and resolve identified constraints. Lead customer/partner projects that implement technical architecture. Identify, escalate, and work to resolve technical blockers and route non-technical issues for removal. Adapt methodology and apply governance to minimize business and technical risks. Generate new ideas for changes and improvements. Develop and expand existing impactful relationships with stakeholders. Respectfully challenge customers/partners when going in the wrong direction and escalate appropriately. Identify Microsoft's strengths over competitive solutions to convince customers of solution. Share ideas, insight, and strategic, technical input with internal teams using a thorough knowledge of specific Microsoft products and their context in the competitive landscape. Participate in external architect community events and share learnings with the internal team. Lead architecture design, resiliency reviews, and technical optimization that result in production deployment application and increase customer usage/Azure Consumed Revenue. The CSA drives delivery execution through preparedness, precision delivery, overall utilization, and high customer satisfaction in a cost-efficient manner.
We’re looking for a Cloud Solution Architect (CSA) to help customers migrate, modernize and secure their infrastructure, applications, and data on Microsoft Azure, laying the foundation for scalable, production-ready AI solutions. As part of the Cloud + AI Infrastructure team, you’ll deliver engagements focused on migration, modernization, operational excellence and resilient architecture using frameworks like Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) and Well-Architected Framework (WAF). You’ll leverage existing Repeatable IP and execution engines for critical milestones, ensure infrastructure, application, and database readiness for AI workloads, and ensure successful deployment that accelerates adoption. You’ll work closely with customer IT leaders to design and implement scalable solutions, resolve blockers, and accelerate adoption of Azure services through repeatable IP and delivery excellence. With deep expertise across Azure infrastructure, applications, databases, SAP, and hybrid environments, you’ll play a key role in helping customers unlock the full value of their Microsoft Azure investments.
The ideal candidate has a strong background in enterprise architecture, cloud technologies, and customer collaboration.
Your Role and Impact:
Strategic Guidance: Engage with customers & partners to understand their goals and challenges, then provide strategic solutions that maximize the value of their Microsoft technology investments.
Technical Leadership: Lead in-depth technical discussions, offering insights and recommendations to overcome complex challenges in data and AI initiatives both On-premises (SQL Server) as well as in Azure.
Empowering Customers & Partners: Support customers & Partners in achieving successful outcomes by developing tailored solutions that drive their digital transformation and innovation.
Continuous Growth: Leverage this opportunity to advance your career while enhancing your knowledge and skills in cutting-edge cloud technologies.
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 ideal candidate will have experience in customer-facing roles and success in leading in-depth technical architecture discussions with senior customer executives, Architects, IT Management, and Developers to drive value to our customers and is open to travel to customer site as needed by business.
Key responsibilities include:
- Understanding Customer/Partner Technical Environment (Insights about Customer/Partner and Industry): Gather customer/partner insights (e.g., feedback around technical preferences, environments, business needs, competitive landscape), and map architecture, and Digital & AI transformation solutions to customer/partner business outcomes. Adapt business models, plans, and solutions to insights.
- Understanding Customer/Partner Technical Environment (Internal Advocacy): Act as the voice of the customer (VOC)/partner by driving new feedback, gaps, blockers, insights, resources, etc. across communities to track, add, and prioritize, using established channels.
- Architecture Design and Deployment (Architecture Proposals): Receive and synthesize data about customer/partner business and technical requirements, address them with technical architecture(s), demonstrate and prove those solutions capability and business value through design collaboration sessions with the customer/partner.
- Architecture Design and Deployment (Requirements and Constraints): Apply broad technical knowledge across various of architecture solutions to meet business and information technology (IT) requirements and resolve identified technical constraints. Help to shape and enhance customers' requirements.
- Architecture Design and Deployment (Resolving Blockers): Identify, escalate, and work to resolve technical blockers (e.g., changing configurations, sample coding) to accelerate architecture implementations and routes non-technical issues for removal by the appropriate party.
- Trusted Advisor (Challenger Mindset): Respectfully challenge customers/partners when going in the wrong direction and escalate appropriately.
- Trusted Advisor (Competitor Insights/ Differentiated Value Proposition): Understand the competitor's architecture solutions and identify Microsoft's strengths over competitive solutions to drive conversations with customers/partners and convince them of solution.
- Customer Usage: Lead architecture design, resiliency reviews, and technical optimization that result in production deployment application and increase customer business value. Drive efforts to ensure that the customer's environment and applications are well-architected.
- Customer Satisfaction – Deliver positive Customer Satisfaction, and become trusted advisors to customers by leveraging solution area expertise to enable defined Customer Success Plan outcomes.
Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, or related field AND 12+ 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 8+ years experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting
- OR equivalent experience
6+ years experience working in a customer-facing role (e.g., internal and/or external).
6+ years experience working on technical projects
Business communications - reading, writing and speaking English.
Native Japanese reading & writing with highest proficiency is a must.
**Technical Expertise: **
Azure Cloud Solution Architects should be experienced at implementing, automating, and troubleshooting Microsoft Azure Infrastructure solutions.
The Azure Cloud Solution Architect role requires knowledge and experience in a number of the following technologies/areas:
- Azure Infrastructure Core (Storage, Network, Compute)
- Cloud Adoption Framework and Well-Architected Framework
- Azure Landing Zones
- Azure Backup & Site Recovery
- Azure Migration
- Azure Governance, Azure Policy, Management Groups, Governance / Compliance as Code
- Knowledge of Azure Monitor, Log Analytics
- Azure ExpressRoute
- Virtual Network
- VPN Gateway
- Azure Arc
- Azure Virtual Machines
- Azure Virtual Desktop
- Azure VMWare Solution
- ARM JSON or Terraform Templates – (Infrastructure as code) Azure CLI and/or PowerShell
- Strong understanding of Windows Server and/or Linux Operating Systems
- Working knowledge of On-Premises Infrastructure Concepts; AD DS, DNS, Monitoring, Patching
- Security concepts for Cloud Infrastructure and Microsoft Operating Systems
- Entra ID / Azure Active Directory (AAD) and Azure AD Connect knowledge and experience.
- Microsoft Certifications qualifications (e.g. Azure Solutions Architect Expert AZ‑305, Azure Administrator Associate AZ‑104)
Skills in the following technologies would be considered desirable and will be a candidate’s differentiator:
- Azure Security Center
- Azure Sentinel
- Configuration as code, such as Desired State Configuration (DSC)
- Automation / Orchestration knowledge – Azure Automation, Runbooks
- Microsoft Azure Stack Hub / Hybrid Cloud – Connected and/or Disconnected Scenario
- Azure PaaS, Containers, App Services, REST APIs, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Additional qualification required:
- Analytical Problem Solving
- Building Customer/Partner Relationships
- Leadership
- Value Selling
- Strong presentation skills
- Face-to-face customer engagement skills
- Technical Delivery and Customer facing presentation skills with a high degree of comfort with both large and small audiences.
- Must have the ability to take on internal initiatives to create services opportunities, and work in a fast-paced environment while balancing multiple demands, addressing shifting priorities, and maintaining focus.
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. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. 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.
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.**