Principal Azure Cloud Solution Architect

As a Principal Azure Cloud Solution Architect (CSA) on our Financial Services Industry (FSI) team, you will be at the forefront of designing and implementing Azure Infrasatructure solutions for some of the largest and most advanced Financial Services Institutions and in the world, as well as many of their most strategic Independent Software Vendor (ISV) partners . You will leverage your technical expertise and leadership experience in partnership with other technical experts to solve complex challenges and capitalize on industry opportunities, ensuring optimal performance and security for our clients’ critical applications in the cloud during every step of their journey.FSI Principal Azure CSAs understand our customers' business priorities and identify cloud solutions that support them, ensuring they adhere to Microsoft best practices and helping define this guidance as we evolve. You will also work directly with our product teams to help shape the future of the platform around the needs of our customers.This is a massive opportunity for career growth in the cloud technology space, representing one of the world's largest and most advanced hyperscale cloud providers in partnership with the world's largest financial institutions to build a better, safer and more secure future.We understand the importance of work-life balance and flexibility. Therefore, this role offers the option to work from home partially or fully, depending on your preference and the project requirements. Join us in shaping the future of cloud solutions within the financial services industry.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.ResponsibilitiesCustomer Centricity• Identifies and evaluates industry trends (customer industry verticals, information technology [IT] industry), 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 territories 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. Leverages feedback to develop strategic and actionable insights and presents business cases to program managers to influence product roadmaps and decision making. Shares customer/partner success stories with the wider internal team.• Develops and expands existing impactful relationships with customer and partner architects, C-level Technical Decision Makers (TDMs), and business stakeholders (to the extent that the customer/partner will call for consultation without being prompted). Provides direction to TDMs and builds the bridge between TDMs and Business Decision Makers (BDMs). Uncovers, aggregates, and synthesizes data about customer/partner business, complex technical requirements and issues (e.g., involving great length or tenacity to resolve), and various technical strategies being proposed.• Addresses requirements/issues/strategies with win-win technical architecture(s) and demonstrates and proves the capability and value of those solutions through design collaboration sessions with the customer/partner. Contributes to and understands how works aligns with customer success plan and delivers customer outcomes by driving partnerships with the appropriate internal teams/resources. Supports customer skilling by leading discussions on technical delivery with other internal and external stakeholders as a technical thought leader to influence customer readiness.• Guides other team members to focus on customer/partner experience through efficient delivery and ensuring a seamless and connected customer experience. Drives definition of customer/partner conditions of success. Anticipates customer/partner dissatisfaction and unmet needs and helps create strategies to improve experience, value realization, and acceleration of customer transformation.• Actively listens, creates, and sustains constructive tension and trust with customers/partners by respectfully challenging their decisions and/or areas where they might do more and encouraging them to consider alternative architectures/solutions and approaches.Business Impact• Drives their team in operating and optimizing complex and high-impact situations for strategic customers/partners in collaboration with internal stakeholders (e.g., Customer Services and Support, Customer Success Account Management, other Account Team members, Product Groups). Anticipates and manages business and technical risks, and adapts methodology and applies governance to identify, communicate, and minimize business and technical risks. 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.• Owns complex customers/partner relationships to anticipate, identify, propose resolution, and lead removal of technical blockers through regular technical reviews and check-ins to accelerate consumption and solution implementations. Anticipates and routes non-technical issues for removal by the appropriate party. 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. Shapes and enhances customers' requirements.• Proactively uses deep knowledge of the products, services, and value propositions of Microsoft and its competitors in customer/partner conversations and to propose and coach others to develop new solutions to scale across multiple customers/partners while demonstrating the business case and presenting alternative scenarios. Optimizes to drive customer 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. Creates• opportunities to expand or accelerate cloud consumption (including through cloud related managed intellectual property [MIP]) and leads these customer/partner conversations. Leads architecture design, resiliency reviews, and technical optimization across multiple applications for the customer/partner, resulting in production deployment application and increased customer/partner usage and consumption. Ensures that the customer/partner's applications have as few points of failure as possible. Provides thought leadership to help drive technical solution design, development, and deployment and supports the customer/partner throughout implementation to achieve value outcomes and Microsoft's Customer Promise.• Leads the adoption of Microsoft offerings based on analysis/differentiation of Microsoft and competitor products to influence the industry-wide direction for specific architecture(s).Technical Leadership• Leverages market insights to assist leadership in defining global vision by identifying relevant areas in which to drive up-skilling. Role models effective technical readiness and influences team to drive their own technical readiness. Drives and engages others to adapt to changes aligned with solution areas/services priorities. Acts as a mentor to less experienced colleagues by educating them on technical and non-technical concepts and sharing best practices.• Leads virtual teams around technologies and customer/partner challenges by sharing ideas, insights, and strategic, technical input with technical teams, internal communities across the field, and the larger virtual team across Microsoft using knowledge of Microsoft architectures and their context in the competitive landscape. Organizes or presents at internal events (e.g., Ready, Build, Ignite). Demonstrates deep industry knowledge and drives recognition for Microsoft solutions through presentations and engagements with external audiences. Participates in external technical community events (e.g., conferences, seminars, technical meetups, Webcasts, blogs, hackathons) and shares learnings across internal teams.• Connects gaps and patterns across business and technology areas, and drives changes and improvements to existing Intellectual Property (IP), technologies, and/or processes that enable solutions to scale across customers/partner. Drives consumption acceleration, as well as IP reuse and best practice sharing. Develops and contributes to the company stock of structured frameworks and methodologies. Proactively identifies gaps through delivery, communicating• those gaps to others (e.g., Leadership, Managed Intellectual Property [MIP], Design, and Governance), and leveraging business experience to prioritize efforts. Drives strategy for new IP and collaborates with MIP, Design, and Governance to improve existing IP.Other• * Embody our Culture and ValuesQualificationsRequired Qualifications• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related field AND 7+ years experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, information technology (IT) consulting/support, systems administration, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting• OR equivalent experience.• 7+ years of experience in ANY combination of the following technologies: Azure Compute, Azure Network, Azure Storage, Azure Monitoring, Azure Security, Azure Identity, Azure Governance, Azure Business Continuity, Azure Disaster Recovery, Azure Virtualization, Infrastructure-as-Code, Terraform, Azure Resource Manager• 7+ years of experience designing, architecting, implementing, and supporting multi-tier enterprise Cloud infrastructure architectures.• 7+ years of proven experience in presenting and influencing cloud infrastructure solution strategies and enterprise architecture decisions with senior/executive technical and business decision-makersPreferred 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.• Demonstrated experience of implementing identity management and security frameworks for cloud-based and hybrid solutions.• Understanding of security, privacy, governance, and compliance requirements for migrating to the cloud as well as maintaining hybrid solutions.• Experience with enterprise operations and systems management solutions.• 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) or experience with leading cloud technologies.• Ability to articulate and present compelling arguments for cloud solution strategies and enterprise architecture decisions, and to navigate complex organizational dynamics.• Structured facilitator: Validated customer experience in requirements capture; prioritization; capturing evidence and impact to quantify business value; issue, risk and constraint identification• Broad knowledge of and ability to explain key end-user scenarios and technical architectures in the Cloud Infrastructure space with experience in hybrid cloud infrastructure design and deployment.Cloud Solution Architecture IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $129,200 - $248,800 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 $162,000 - $268,900 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-payMicrosoft 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.