Microsoft

Director of Solution Engineering, Cloud & AI Platforms

Microsoft$155K — $277K *
Enterprise Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Master's or Bachelor's in Computer Science/IT/Business or equivalent experience
  • 6+ years in technical pre-sales or consulting for Master's, 8+ years for Bachelor's, or 10+ years in any case
  • 10+ years of relevant technical experience preferred
  • 5+ years managing people, especially remote teams
  • Strong experience in cloud solutions, AI technologies, and digital transformation

Responsibilities

  • Lead and inspire a geographically diverse team of Solution Engineering Managers and Engineers
  • Establish and promote a high-performance culture focused on excellence and collaboration
  • Develop coaching and succession plans to strengthen leadership within the organization
  • Drive engagement and inclusion initiatives to enhance employee retention
  • Manage technical strategy across Cloud and AI solutions and align with business objectives
  • Build relationships with senior customer executives to facilitate transformation strategies
  • Champion AI transformation initiatives and guide clients in adopting Microsoft technologies

Benefits

  • Comprehensive healthcare coverage
  • 401(k) retirement plan with company matching
  • Generous paid time off and holidays
  • Employee training and development programs
  • Flexible work arrangements, including remote work options
Full Job Description
Responsibilities
Organizational Leadership & Talent Development
  • Lead, develop, and inspire a geographically distributed organization of Solution Engineering Managers and Solution Engineers.
  • Establish a high-performance culture focused on accountability, technical excellence, collaboration, inclusion, and continuous learning.
  • Develop leadership bench strength through coaching, succession planning, manager development, and talent investment.
  • Drive employee engagement, organizational health, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and retention strategies.
  • Create career growth opportunities that strengthen both technical expertise and leadership capabilities across the organization.
Business Leadership & Strategy Execution
  • Own technical strategy and execution across Cloud & AI Platform solution areas, including AI, Data, Infrastructure, Applications, Development Platforms, and Modernization.
  • Partner with business leaders to define territory strategies, organizational priorities, resource allocation plans, and growth objectives.
  • Support achievement of strategic business goals through technical engagement, customer influence, and solution adoption.
  • Leverage business insights, customer trends, and market opportunities to shape organizational priorities and execution plans.
  • Drive disciplined execution through clear accountability, performance management, and operational rigor.
Customer Impact & Executive Engagement
  • Build trusted advisor relationships with CIOs, CTOs, Chief Data Officers, Chief AI Officers, and other senior customer decision makers.
  • Help enterprise customers envision and execute cloud, data, and AI transformation strategies that deliver measurable business value.
  • Engage directly in complex strategic opportunities, executive briefings, architecture reviews, and customer transformation programs.
  • Guide teams in resolving technical blockers and accelerating customer decision making.
  • Represent Microsoft as a senior technology leader with strategic customers, partners, and industry stakeholders.
Technical Leadership & Innovation
  • Lead technical strategy supporting Azure, Microsoft Fabric, Azure AI, GitHub, Foundry, Intelligent Applications, Modern Infrastructure, Security, and Application Modernization solutions.
  • Drive technical excellence across architecture design, solution envisioning, proofs of concept, demonstrations, and deployment planning.
  • Ensure customer solutions are secure, scalable, resilient, and AI-ready.
  • Foster innovation and adoption of emerging Microsoft technologies and AI-powered experiences.
  • Deliver field insights that influence product direction, engineering priorities, and go-to-market strategy.
AI Transformation Leadership
  • Champion Microsoft's vision for AI transformation and Frontier Firm enablement.
  • Help customers accelerate adoption of generative AI, intelligent applications, copilots, agents, and data-driven business processes.
  • Guide teams in helping customers build AI roadmaps aligned to business outcomes.
  • Position Microsoft as the trusted platform for enterprise AI innovation and responsible AI implementation.
  • Create organizational capability in rapidly evolving AI technologies and customer scenarios.
Partner & Cross-Functional Leadership
  • Collaborate with Specialist Sellers, Customer Success Account Managers, Industry teams, Partner organizations, and Product Engineering.
  • Ensure effective pod-based selling motions and seamless technical orchestration across solution areas.
  • Drive strategic partner alignment that expands customer value and accelerates transformation outcomes.
  • Help shape regional and national business strategies through thought leadership and field feedback.
Operational Excellence
  • Manage organizational planning, headcount strategy, budget stewardship, workforce planning, and talent investments.
  • Drive excellence in forecasting support, technical engagement quality, customer satisfaction, and business execution.
  • Utilize data-driven insights and performance metrics to improve organizational effectiveness.
  • Implement scalable processes and operational rhythms that increase consistency and impact across teams.
  • Ensure effective governance, compliance, and execution against Microsoft business priorities.


Qualifications

Required/minimum qualifications
  • Master's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business or related field AND 6+ years technical pre-sales or technical consulting experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field AND 8+ years technical pre-sales or technical consulting experience OR 10+ years technical pre-sales or technical consulting experience OR equivalent experience.

Other Requirements
  • This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship. Candidates must have authorization to work in the United States that does not now or in the future require employer sponsorship.

Additional or preferred qualifications
  • 10+ years technical pre-sales, technical consulting, or technology delivery, or related experience OR equivalent experience.
  • 5+ years people management experience (including leading virtual teams).
  • Experience driving business growth through cloud platform, AI, data, application modernization, infrastructure modernization, security, developer technologies, or digital transformation initiatives.
  • Deep executive communication, presentation, and customer engagement skills.
  • Proven track record partnering across sales, customer success, engineering, and partner ecosysems to influence technical and business decision makers across complex enterprise environments.
  • Experience supporting large strategic enterprise customers and executive-level transformation initiatives.
  • Passion for coaching, developing talent, and fostering a high-performance team.


Solution Engineering M6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $155,800 - $277,200 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 $202,400 - $303,600 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

About Microsoft

Microsoft is an American multinational corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells a range of software products and services. Microsoft’s devices and consumer (D&C) licensing segment licenses the Windows operating system and related software, Microsoft Office for consumers, and the Windows Phone operating system. The company’s computing and gaming hardware segment provides Xbox gaming and entertainment consoles and accessories, second-party and third-party video games, and Xbox Live subscriptions; surface devices and accessories; and Microsoft PC accessories. Its phone hardware segment offers Lumia smartphones and other non-Lumia phones. Its D&C segment provides Windows Store, Xbox Live transactions, and Windows phone store; search advertising; display advertising; Office 365 Home and Office 365 Personal; first-party video games; and other consumer products and services as well as operating retail stores. Microsoft’s commercial licensing segments license server products, including Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Studio, System Center, and related Client Access Licenses (CALs); Windows Embedded; Windows operating system; Microsoft Office for business, including Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, and related CALs; Microsoft Dynamics business solutions; and Skype. Its commercial segment offers enterprise services, including premier support services and Microsoft consulting services; commercial cloud comprising Office 365 Commercial, other Microsoft Office online offerings, Dynamics CRM Online, and Microsoft Azure; and other commercial products and online services. The company markets and distributes its products through original equipment manufacturers, distributors, and resellers, as well as online.

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Learn more about Microsoft
Size
181,000 employees
Market Cap
$1,762.4 billion
Industry
Net Income
$51.3 billion
Founded
1975
5 Year Trend
+15.5%
Revenue
$153.2 billion
NASDAQ

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