We are looking for a highly motivated and passionate Data Platform & Advanced Analytics/Artificial Intelligence Cloud Solution Architect to drive high priority customer initiatives on the Microsoft Azure Platform in collaboration with customers and the Microsoft field in Enterprise accounts segment of our business. This is a customer facing role, owning overall technical relationship between customer and Microsoft Data, Advanced Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Platform.You will own the Data Platform & Advanced Analytics and AI technical support including architectural design sessions, specific implementation projects, build MVPs and trouble solving and prevent the issues and support to build more efficient systems with Well-Architect framework. The ideal candidate will have experience in customer-facing roles and success leading deep technical architecture discussions with senior customer executives, Enterprise Architects, IT Management and Developers to drive Data Platform and Advanced Analytics solutions to productions.Responsibilities:Customer 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.

Qualifications:Required/Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in computer science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, or related field AND proven 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.
• Proven years experience with enterprise-scale technical delivery experience with Azure AI Services including Azure OpenAI, Azure Cognitive Search, Azure Speech, Azure Machine Learning (or equivalent), Generative AI, LLM customization, NLP, Search, MLOps, Open-source AI frameworks, AI Infrastructure, architecture design.
• Proven years experience creating AI Proof of Concepts and Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) and supporting production deployments.

Additional or Preferred QualificationsBreadth of technical experience and knowledge (preferred):

• Application development skills - proficient with Python, Java, or similar programming languages in the context of application development, and ability to integrate Azure AI with other services; cloud application deployment experience with services such as Azure Functions, Kubernetes, Docker, API Management, and related.
• Architecture Design - the ability to create and explain 3-tier architecture diagrams, system context diagrams, system interaction diagrams, etc.
• Experience in architecting deployments for production in an enterprise setting including infrastructure knowledge, security, networking, and other considerations.
• Proven years experience working on technical projects in a customer-facing role (e.g., internal and/or external)
• Ability to build relationships, orchestrate, lead, and influence virtual teams, ensuring successful acceleration and unblocking of customer projects.
• Technical Certification in Cloud (e.g., Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google, security certifications)
• Presentation and communication skills with a high degree of comfort with key audiences (Senior Executives, Management, Data Scientists, Engineers, etc.)

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. 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 .

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