Cloud Solution Architecture - Cloud AI Apps & Azure Infra

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With more than 45,000 employees and partners worldwide, the Customer Experience and Success (CE&S) organization is on a mission to empower customers to accelerate business value through differentiated customer experiences that leverage Microsoft’s products and services, ignited by our people and culture. We drive cross-company alignment and execution, ensuring that we consistently exceed customers’ expectations in every interaction, whether in-product, digital, or human-centered. CE&S is responsible for all up services across the company, including consulting, customer success, and support across Microsoft’s portfolio of solutions and products. Join CE&S and help us accelerate AI transformation for our customers and the world.

The Global Customer Success (GCS) organization, an organization within CE&S, is leading the effort to enable customer success on the Microsoft Cloud by harnessing leading, AI-powered capabilities and human expertise to deliver innovation solutions that accelerate business value, drive operational excellence and nurture long term loyalty.

We are looking for a highly motivated and passionate Cloud Solution Architect (CSA) focusing on Cloud & AI Apps & Azure Infra to join the Customer Success Team. As part of this role. you will be responsible for technical Customer engagements, working with the most challenging and exciting projects within Microsoft Cloud & on prem customer base part of CAIP SA. This customer-facing position is a hands-on technical role spanning across design, build, and operations with a focus on issues.

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 Vendor CSAs dedicated to enhancing the customer's experience with Microsoft as they transition to hybrid/public cloud solutions.

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.

Required/minimum 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 6+ years' experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting

Additional or preferred qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or related field AND 8+ years technical leadership experience in relevant area of business OR equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of experience in object-oriented programming skills, cloud application architecture and microservices development for public clouds.
• 8+ years of experience in capturing application requirements, design review meetings, development, designing and deploying software using automated processes and troubleshooting and resolving software defects over Pure Cloud and/or Hybrid environments.
• 8+ years of experience working with Agile, CI/CD or DevOps models involving multiple disciplines of coding, testing and deployment.

• Solution Architecture (e.g., SOA, enterprise architecture).
• Solid Solution Design and Development skills
• Experience with .NET technologies up to the latest version (e.g., WCF, WF, MVC).

• Advanced written, spoken English level with direct customer facing experience.

echnical Expertise:
Azure Cloud Solution Architects should be experienced at implementing, automating, and troubleshooting Microsoft Azure based solutions.
The Azure Cloud Solution Architect role requires knowledge and experience in several the following technologies/areas:

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Azure Containers & Orchestrators
App Insights
APIM
Redis Cache
Cosmos DB & Azure SQL basics
Azure Key Vault
Azure CDN
Building Cloud-native Applications using Microservices ArchitectureAzure Service Bus
Azure Functions
Azure Event Hubs
Azure Notification Hubs
GitHub
Rest APIs
IIS
.Net Development
Azure DevOps (ADO) & Secure DevOps: Application Security Principles and Practices
Azure Event Grid
IOT Hub/Protocol Gateway
Azure Logic Apps
Azure NetApp files
Threat Modeling & Azure Application Security
Azure Infrastructure Fundamentals (Compute, Storage, Migration, Security)
Azure Front Door
Azure Traffic Manager
Azure Networking
Azure Active Directory (AAD) and Azure AD Connect knowledge and experience.

Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) core knowledge:
• Storage
• Network
• Compute
Other technical areas we look for real world demonstrated ability are:
• Azure Governance / Cloud Adoption Framework, Azure Policy, Management Groups, Governance / Compliance as Code
• ARM JSON or Terraform Templates – (Infrastructure as code) Azure CLI and/or PowerShell
• Strong understanding of Windows and/or Linux Operating Systems
• Working knowledge of On-Premises Infrastructure solutions; AD DS, DNS, Monitoring, Patching
• Security concepts for Cloud Infrastructure and Microsoft Operating Systems
• Azure Active Directory (AAD) and Azure AD Connect knowledge and experience.
• Strong troubleshooting skills and support experience
• 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.
• Troubleshooting knowledge & skills, Microsoft Certifications qualifications desirable

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 vendor 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.

Additional details

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 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 (e.g., UAT/TFT).
• Architecture Design and Deployment (Structured Approach): Leverage and champion an existing architecture approach to achieve Microsoft's agreed commitments to the customer/partner. Identify growth opportunities based on knowledge of customer/partner needs.
• 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 (Pre-Sales and/or Implementation Leadership): Lead customer/partner projects that implement technical architecture(s). Provide thought leadership for technical architecture design, development, and deployment and supports/drives the customer/partner throughout pre-sales and/or implementation.
• 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.
• Architecture Design and Deployment (Risk and Quality Management): Adapt methodology and apply governance to identify, communicate, and minimize business and technical risks (e.g., Well-Architected Framework, Enterprise Scale Landing Zone, Cloud Adoption Framework). Define customer/partner conditions of success, adhere to quality assurance, and calculate risks while designing and/or delivering solutions.
• Practice Development: Generate new ideas for changes and improvements to existing intellectual property (IP), technologies, and processes for designated customers/partners. Drive opportunities for IP re-use, best practice sharing, and consumption.
• Trusted Advisor (Relationship Building): Develop and expand existing impactful relationships with customer and partner/MCS architects and technical specialists, technical decision makers and business stakeholders.
• 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.
• Thought Leadership (Internal Education): Share ideas, insight, 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.
• Thought Leadership (External Presence): Participate in external architect community events (e.g., conferences, seminars, technical meetups, Webcasts, blogs, hackathons) and share learnings with the internal team. Act a mentor to junior colleagues to educate them on technical and non-technical concepts.
• 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.