Cloud Solution Architect Manager, AI

Overview

With more than 45,000 employees and partners worldwide, the Customer Experience and Success (CE&S) organization at Microsoft is on a mission to empower customers to accelerate business value through differentiated customer experiences that leverage Microsoft’s products and services, ignited by our people and culture. We drive cross-company alignment and execution, ensuring that we consistently exceed customers’ expectations in every interaction, whether in-product, digital, or human-centered. CE&S is responsible for all up services across the company, including consulting, customer success, and support across Microsoft’s portfolio of solutions and products. Join CE&S and help us accelerate AI transformation for our customers and the world.

The Global Customer Success (GCS) organization, an organization within CE&S, is leading the effort to enable customer success on the Microsoft Cloud by harnessing leading, AI-powered capabilities and human expertise to deliver innovative solutions that accelerate business value, drive operational excellence and nurture long term loyalty.

As a Cloud Solution Architect Manager, AI, you will cultivate and lead a team of emerging technical professionals who deliver customer-facing AI solutions across Azure Cloud, Modern Work, Security, and Copilot. You will empower Early-in-Career CSAs to rapidly build capability, become customer facing within months, and deliver consistent, high-quality AI engagements. This opportunity will allow you to:

• Accelerate your leadership impact by shaping the next generation of AI-skilled customer architects.
• Develop deep expertise in AI-enabled delivery models across Microsoft Cloud, Modern Work, Copilot, and Security.
• Hone your ability to build scalable learning, coaching, and operational frameworks aligned to our AI-native workforce transformation.

This role is 100% Microsoft onsite or customer site only.

As an AI Cloud Solution Architect Manager, you will lead a team of people who enable customers to achieve their outcomes based on their investments in Microsoft technology. Leveraging both business and technical expertise, you will coach Early-in-Career CSAs to ensure customers gain value from AI solutions across Azure, Security, M365/Copilot, and AI Business Process. You will play a pivotal role in Microsoft’s evolving Small Medium Enterprise & Channel (SME&C) Customer Success Unit (CSU), delivering success through empowerment and accountability, by modeling, coaching, and caring, while embedding a culture of technical intensity and customer-obsessed execution.

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.

Responsibilities

• Early-in-Career Talent Development: Build and execute structured ramp frameworks (training → shadowing → co-delivery → independent delivery) to prepare EiC CSAs to become customer facing billable deliveries within months. Provide consistent coaching, technical guidance, and performance feedback to accelerate capability in AI, Cloud, Modern Work, Copilot, and Security.
• Customer & AI Engagement Excellence: Guide your team to deliver customer value through AI deliveries for M365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Azure OpenAI-based solutions, Defender security insights, and Azure. Ensure every customer interaction drives usage, satisfaction, and measurable outcomes.
• Strategic AI Leadership: Lead your team to deliver an end-to-end Copilot journey across Chat, M365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, and Power Platform, ensuring alignment with AI Business Solutions' goals.
• Operational Excellence & Metrics: Establish disciplined rhythms of business (ROB), drive milestone hygiene, and ensure accurate tracking of KPIs including usage, MAU, consumed revenue, customer outcomes, and readiness milestones for early-career talent.
• Skilling & Continuous Learning: Cultivate a culture of learning using programs such as Tech Boost, Tech Excel, Tech Connect, and hands-on AI labs. Ensure EiC CSAs develop technical confidence across Azure, Modern Work, Copilot, and Security workloads.
• Unified Delivery Model: Partner across CSAM, engineering, partner, and sales teams to ensure a consistent customer journey, leveraging Unified EDE/DE involvement and ensuring seamless transitions throughout the delivery lifecycle.
• Account Targeting & Impact: Prioritize high-opportunity customer scenarios where EiC AI talent can drive rapid value, usage acceleration, and operational impact across the portfolio.

Qualifications

• Proven people management or talent development experience, including managing consultant practice managers, technical sales, and/or technical architects.
• Proven experience delivering or leading teams through customer-facing technical AI engagements (e.g., Azure OpenAI, Copilot, AI apps/agents, AI-assisted delivery) directly with customers, including design, implementation, troubleshooting, and value-realization.

Additional Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building, coaching, and scaling new teams, ideally Early-in-Career (EiC/EIP) talent, including ramp plans, skill development, and establishing delivery readiness within structured timeframes.
• Direct customer technical delivery experience in AI (preferred depth: Copilot, Azure OpenAI, AI modernization, agentic patterns, AI-assisted delivery).
• Technical Certification in Cloud (e.g., Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google, security certifications).