Cloud Solution Architect

Overview of the Cloud Solution Architect Role at Microsoft

Are you passionate about Microsoft Azure and eager to drive customer success in their Cloud & AI transformation? Join Microsoft as a Cloud Solution Architect. In this role, you will collaborate with customers to achieve their business priorities by evaluating applications, business requirements, and recommending tailored Azure solutions. Your expertise will be crucial in demonstrating these solutions to secure technical decisions.

As a Cloud Solution Architect, you will focus on helping customers migrate, modernize, and secure their infrastructure, applications, and data on Microsoft Azure. This forms the essential foundation for building scalable, production-ready AI solutions. Working within the Cloud & AI Infrastructure team, you will lead engagements centered on migration, modernization, operational excellence, and resilient architecture. You'll leverage industry frameworks such as the Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) and Well-Architected Framework (WAF) to guide your approach.

Your responsibilities will include close collaboration with customer IT leaders to design and implement robust solutions, resolve technical blockers, and accelerate the adoption of Azure services. This is achieved through the development of repeatable intellectual property (IP) and a commitment to delivery excellence. With deep expertise spanning Azure infrastructure, applications, databases, SAP, and hybrid environments, you will play a pivotal role in enabling customers to fully realize the value of their Microsoft Azure investments.

Microsoft is actively seeking passionate and collaborative Cloud Solution Architect professionals to join various business groups across the United States. These opportunities cater to varying customer sizes within enterprise, regulated, and partner services organizations. This role offers flexibility, allowing up to 50% work-from-home, with travel percentages varying by specific role needs.

Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and organization to achieve more. We foster a culture of inclusion, growth, innovation, respect, integrity, and accountability, where everyone can thrive.

Key Responsibilities

• Translate customer challenges into high-ROI actionable solutions, ensuring a seamless and valuable customer experience.
• Lead architectural design sessions, delivering secure, scalable, and resilient infrastructure solutions aligned with business goals, utilizing CAF and WAF.
• Partner with technical and sales teams to identify opportunities, develop tailored solutions, and drive business value realization.
• Drive migration and modernization initiatives, including committed proof of concept and production milestones, across various workloads (infrastructure, data, SAP, AI).
• Optimize customer environments for health, resiliency, security, and performance, enabling production-scale AI use cases.
• Develop and contribute to repeatable IP to accelerate deployment and achieve targeted outcomes.
• Identify and resolve technical blockers to ensure timely go-live and delivery excellence.
• Generate incremental pipeline from engagements by recommending next best actions aligned with business priorities.
• Maintain technical proficiency through continuous skilling and certifications in priority Azure workloads (e.g., Azure SQL, PostgreSQL, AKS, App Service, AVS, SAP, Windows, Linux, Defender for Cloud).
• Engage in technical communities, share best practices, and contribute to knowledge reuse to accelerate customer transformation.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, or a related field AND 2+ years of experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, IT consulting/support, systems administration, network operations, software development/support, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting, OR equivalent experience.
• Note: Microsoft is unable to sponsor a work visa for this role.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, or a related field AND 8+ years of experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, IT consulting/support, systems administration, network operations, software development/support, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting, OR a Master's Degree in a related field AND 6+ years of relevant experience, OR equivalent experience.
• 4+ years experience in a customer-facing role (internal and/or external).
• 4+ years experience working on technical projects.
• Technical Certification in Cloud (e.g., Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google, security certifications).

Key skills/competency

• Azure Cloud Platform
• Solution Architecture
• Cloud Migration
• Infrastructure Modernization
• AI Infrastructure
• Operational Excellence
• Resilient Design
• Technical Consulting
• Customer Engagement
• SAP on Azure