Microsoft

Principal Cloud Solution Architect - CTJ - TS/SCI

Microsoft • $130K — $251K *
Washington, DC 20011In-Person
Information Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Today
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Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, IT, Engineering, or related field with 7+ years in cloud technologies or equivalent experience.
  • Proficiency in IT consulting, system administration, network operations, and software development/support.
  • Experience working in a customer-facing role for at least 6 years, preferably in technical project leadership.
  • Valid U.S. Government Top Secret Security Clearance required; must meet ongoing security verification requirements.
  • Technical certifications in Cloud platforms (e.g., Azure, AWS, Google) are highly preferred.

Responsibilities

  • Deliver solutions aligning with company methodologies to enhance customer operational readiness.
  • Identify and develop new opportunities for cloud consumption and unified expansion.
  • Proactively address and mitigate blockers during solution deployment to ensure customer satisfaction.
  • Collaborate across teams to ensure alignment with customer objectives and increase satisfaction.
  • Act as the voice of the customer, translating their needs into strategic solutions and action plans.

Benefits

  • Opportunity to work in a highly collaborative environment with virtual teams.
  • Access to continuous learning and upskilling initiatives in cloud technologies.
  • Engagement with leadership and influence over product roadmaps and strategic initiatives.
  • Chance to build and maintain relationships with senior stakeholders and C-suite executives.
  • Participation in external community events to enhance professional presence and network.
Full Job Description
Overview

Principal Cloud Solution Architect proactively acts as the voice of the customer/partner and internal communities leveraging relevant insights from feedback tools and systems. Proactively identifies and/or translates customer/partner problems into industry solutions. Drives self and guides other team members to focus on customer/partner experience through efficient delivery and ensuring a seamless and connected customer experience. Anticipates, identifies, escalates, and mitigates blockers using appropriate tools. Delivers solutions in line with company methodologies, ensuring proven practices and patterns are followed. Proactively identifies and anticipates new cross-solution opportunities for Consumption, Usage & Unified expansion at scale. Operates according to required operational excellence and proven practice standards throughout all sales stages/activities/tools of record. Leverages market insights and demand signals. Leads, mentors, and may assemble virtual teams using knowledge of Microsoft architectures and their context in the competitive landscape. Proactively identifies and anticipates gaps that enable solutions to scale across customers.

Responsibilities

Business Impact

  • Delivers solutions in line with company methodologies (e.g., product offerings such as value-based deliverables [VBDs], advice, training, technical validation), ensuring proven practices and patterns are followed to prepare complex customers for operational readiness and achievement of their business goals and targets. Leveraging knowledge of change management proven practices and/or involving the change management team, proactively helps the customer deploy for long-term organizational adoption to increase customer satisfaction and drive consumption/usage. Guides complex customers/partners towards a well-architected (e.g., secure, resilient, artificial intelligence [AI]-enabled), and cost- and performance-optimized solution to increase retention and expansion opportunities. Articulates the value of Unified and supports sellers, partnering with account teams to build consumption plans aligned with appropriate services. Provides feedback to Unified Delivery Team on VBDs to refine and further develop content.


  • Proactively identifies and anticipates new cross-solution opportunities for Consumption, Usage & Unified expansion (especially Enhanced Solutions) at scale based on business value to customer/partner and clear understanding of the Microsoft value proposition for supported platforms to empower cloud success, foster and strengthen security and resiliency, and drive AI innovation. Strategically consults with, actively listens to, and respectfully challenges customers/partners, building trust to then advocate for alternative architectures/solutions/approaches that shape and/or enhance customer requirements. Identifies, anticipates, and evaluates industry trends (e.g., customer industry verticals, information technology [IT] industry), gathers customer/partner insights (e.g., feedback around technical preferences, environments, business needs, competitive landscape), and maps both existing and novel architecture and digital transformation solutions to customer/partner business outcomes. Proactively anticipates and captures opportunities in appropriate systems, processes, and tools, working collaboratively across the organization to execute on opportunities aligned with Microsoft's Customer Engagement Model.


  • Anticipates, identifies, escalates, and mitigates blockers using appropriate tools and processes to accelerate solution deployment, value realization and usage/consumption for complex customers/scenarios. Proactively applies broad business, technical, industry, and/or enterprise knowledge to architecture or support projects to meet business and information technology (IT) requirements and resolve identified constraints.


  • Operates according to required operational excellence and proven practice standards throughout all sales stages/activities/tools of record (e.g., pipeline updates, time tracking). Orchestrates and collaborates across Microsoft and customer/partner teams through on-strategy delivery to achieve customer/partner objectives and increase customer/partner satisfaction. Proactively anticipates and manages business and technical risks, adapts methodology and applies governance principles to identify, communicate, and minimize business and technical risks. Executes work in compliance with industry and Microsoft guidelines and procedures. Continuously prioritizes among competing demands in their work and identifies where impact occurs with customers, ensuring alignment with business priorities and goals.


Customer Centricity

  • Proactively identifies and/or translates customer/partner problems into industry solutions aligned with Microsoft product and platform strategy, creates or improves an existing business model, and explains why and/or how they meet customer/partner outcomes and return on investment (ROI) goals (e.g., via proof of concept, minimally viable product [MVP], rapid prototype) relative to competitive offerings. Proactively helps the customer/partner accelerate their adoption and use of Microsoft product/platform strategy-aligned (cross-solution area) solutions. Builds relationships with, and provides direction to technical decision makers (TDMs) up to the C-suite level, and builds the bridge between TDMs and business decision makers (BDMs). Leads and elevates interactions as needed with customers/partners' Chief Information Office (CIO), Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), and other C-level (CXO) roles to bridge understanding of security, compliance, operational and risk requirements across BDMs, TDMs, CIO and CISO teams, appropriately engaging additional subject matter experts when deeper expertise is required.


  • Proactively acts as the voice of the customer/partner, sharing ideas, feedback, insights, success stories and strategic/technical input with Engineering teams, Product Offerings teams and internal communities leveraging relevant insights from feedback tools and systems. Identifies and aggregates patterns of feedback across customers/partners/territories/industries, and leverages them with relevant industry perspective to develop strategic and actionable insights. Presents business cases to program managers to advocate for and influence product roadmaps, decision making, and bug fix prioritization, and own and drive initiatives as appropriate.


  • Drives self and guides other team members to focus on customer/partner experience through efficient delivery and ensuring a seamless and connected customer experience. Drives the realization of customer/partner conditions of success by leveraging an understanding of customer goals. Anticipates, addresses, and leads customer confidence calls to resolve customer/partner dissatisfaction and unmet needs, and creates and executes strategies to improve customer experience, value realization, and acceleration of transformation.


Partner Specialization

  • Identifies and directs attention to multiple, strategic opportunities (e.g., launch deals) that align with revenue goals, and orchestrates growth of solution utilization pipeline with partners. Leads assistance with partner and sales teams to bring clarity to specific, complex opportunities through proof of concept and technical pre-sales support.


  • Understands and anticipates solution area-specific market opportunities (e.g., competitor insights) and proactively leads initiatives to address them by supporting, assembling, and leading a v-team. Influences, challenges, and supports partners in developing scalable offerings, practices, products, and solutions, and investing and adopting new technologies at scale of the customer. May maintain relationships with non-technical senior stakeholders (e.g., sales) within the partner to understand their business model. Maintains active visibility in solution area-specific communities both to build credibility in internal/partner work and information sharing (e.g., technical updates, public facing roadmap) and to influence partners. Collaborates with internal stakeholders (e.g., engineering, sales) to provide field-based insights related to products/solutions related to functioning, pricing, implementation, and other areas.


Technical Leadership

  • Leverages market insights and demand signals to assist leadership in identifying relevant areas in which to drive up-skilling and/or accreditations based on demand. Role models technical readiness, both depth-aligned to solution area priorities and breadth-aligned to Customer Success Unit (CSU)/corporate initiatives (e.g., security, resilience, AI), and influences team to drive their own technical readiness. Acts as a mentor, leading readiness and upskilling activities in the team/organization by educating colleagues on technical and non-technical concepts and sharing proven practices.


  • Leads, mentors, and may assemble virtual teams (v-teams) around technologies and customer/partner challenges, sharing ideas, insights, and strategic, technical input with technical teams, internal communities across the field, and the larger v-team across Microsoft using knowledge of Microsoft architectures and their context in the competitive landscape. Demonstrates deep industry knowledge and drives recognition for Microsoft solutions by leading presentations and engagements with external and internal audiences (e.g., Tech Connect, Build, Ignite) Contributes to and collaborates on intellectual property (IP) and proactively identifies patterns where no IP exists (e.g., CoPilot and AI scenarios) to help build scalable and repeatable models. Participates in and leads external technical and non-technical community events (e.g., conferences, seminars, technical meetups, webcasts, blogs, hackathons) that elevate the Microsoft brand and shares learnings across internal teams.


  • Proactively identifies and anticipates gaps through delivery, communicates those gaps to and influences relevant team members and internal/external stakeholders, and connects gaps and patterns across business and technology areas that drive changes and improvements to products, intellectual property (IP) (both existing and new), technologies, and/or processes/practices that enable solutions to scale across customers. Develops and contributes to modifications of Microsoft's structured frameworks and methodologies. Proactively provides thought leadership and innovation to customers/partners and internal communities at the worldwide level.
  • Embody our culture and values.


Qualifications

Required/minimum qualifications

  • Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, Liberal Arts, or related field AND 7+ 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.


Other Requirements

Security Clearance Requirements: Candidates must be able to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: The successful candidate must have an active U.S. Government Top Secret Security Clearance. Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. Failure to maintain or obtain the appropriate clearance and/or customer screening requirements may result in employment action up to and including termination.
    • Clearance Verification: This position requires successful verification of the stated security clearance to meet federal government customer requirements. You will be asked to provide clearance verification information prior to an offer of employment.
    • Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.
    • Citizenship & Citizenship Verification: This position requires verification of U.S. citizenship due to citizenship-based legal restrictions. Specifically, this position supports United States federal, state, and/or local United States government agency customer and is subject to certain citizenship-based restrictions where required or permitted by applicable law. To meet this legal requirement, citizenship will be verified via a valid passport, or other approved documents, or verified US government Clearance.


Additional or preferred qualifications
  • Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, Liberal Arts, 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, Liberal Arts, 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 leading technical projects.
  • Technical Certification in Cloud (e.g., Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google, security certifications).


Cloud Solution Architecture IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $130,900 - $251,900 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

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
Enterprise Technology
Net Income
$51.3 billion
Founded
1975
5 Year Trend
+15.5%
Revenue
$153.2 billion
NASDAQ
MSFT
* Ladders Estimates

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