Job Description

With over 17,000 employees worldwide, the mission of the Customer Experience & Success (CE&S) organization is to empower customers to accelerate business value through differentiated customer experiences that leverage Microsoft's products and services, ignited by our people and culture. Come join CE&S and help us build a future where customers achieve their business outcomes faster with technology that does more.
We are looking for a Cloud Solution Architect (CSA), specializing in Security who is passionate about driving our customers' security & AI transformation on the Microsoft Platform. This is a customer-facing role, owning the technical relationship between the customer and Microsoft, helping customers to leverage their Microsoft investments through architecture, implementation, and operational health engagements. This role is flexible in that you can work up to 50% from home.
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
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Customer Centricity

• Identifies and evaluates security trends, gathers customer insights (e.g., feedback around technical preferences, environments, business needs, competitive landscape), and maps architecture and digital transformation solutions to customer's business outcomes.
• Acts as the voice of the customer by driving new feedback, insights, and resources to add and prioritize; connecting with Global Security teams at Microsoft, Engineering and Product teams to remove blockers and influence the solution roadmap.
• Develops and expands existing impactful relationships with CISOs, security practitioners, C-level technical decision makers (TDMs), and business stakeholders.
• Uncovers, aggregates, and synthesizes data about customer's security posture and roadmap, complex technical requirements and issues and various technical strategies being proposed.
• Actively listens, creates, and sustains constructive tension and trust with customers by respectfully challenging their decisions and/or areas where they might do more and encouraging them to consider alternative architectures/solutions and approaches.
• Addresses security 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.
• 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 experience through efficient delivery and ensuring a seamless and connected customer experience and shares best practices with the wider internal team.

Accelerate Customer Outcomes • Share expertise, contribute to IP creation & re-use to accelerate customer outcomes. Run Architectural Design Session to build a plan for implementing the solution - governing design in line with customer business goals and their technical environment. Outcome is consensus on solution design and next steps toward production.
• Collaborate and orchestrate with other CSAs and MS stakeholders including FastTrack, partner, and Microsoft Consulting in developing complex end-to-end Enterprise solutions with the Microsoft Security platform.

Business Impact



• Drives their team in operating and optimizing complex and high-impact situations for strategic customers in collaboration with internal stakeholders (e.g., STU, CSAM, other Account Team members, Product Groups).
• Anticipates and manages business and security risks, and adapts methodology (e.g. Zero Trust, Security Adoption Framework, SFI) and applies governance to identify, communicate, and minimize business and security risks.
• Leverages standard tools to ensure accurate opportunity and milestone execution and pipeline hygiene.
• Owns complex customers relationships to anticipate, identify, propose resolution, and lead removal of technical blockers through regular security reviews and check-ins to accelerate consumption and usage.
• Proactively uses deep knowledge of the security portfolio, services, and value propositions of Microsoft and its competitors in customer conversations and to propose and coach others to develop new solutions to scale across multiple customers while demonstrating the business case and presenting alternative scenarios.
• Creates opportunities to expand or accelerate security usage and consumption (including through security related managed intellectual property [VBD, DE, EDE]) and leads these customer conversations.
• Leads the adoption of Microsoft's Security 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.
• Organizes or presents at internal/industry security events (e.g., Ready, Build, Ignite, RSA, etc.). Demonstrates deep industry knowledge and drives recognition for Microsoft solutions through presentations and engagements with external audiences. Participates in external security community events (e.g., conferences, seminars, technical meetups, Webcasts, blogs, hackathons) and shares learnings across internal teams.

Other • Embody our culture and values

Qualifications
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Required/Minimum Qualifications • Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, 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.

• Good understanding of Microsoft 365 Defender Suite, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Microsoft Sentinel, Microsoft Entra ID, IaaS, Network Security, Data Security
• Subject Matter Expertise in two or more of the following security solutions: Threat protection, SIEM and Incident Response; Extended Detection and Response (XDR); Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR); Security Operation Center Management; Identity and Access Management; Cloud Infrastructure; Cloud Security; Data Security.
+ OR

• This person will be a trusted advisor for customers attempting to secure their entire data estates against internal and external data risk. Microsoft Purview's integrated Data Security services support customers holistically securing data by:
• Protecting Sensitive Data using data classification, sensitivity labelling and encryption policies.
• Managing Insider Risks using machine learning detection controls and indicators, adaptive protection to dynamically enforce controls and advanced privacy controls
• Preventing Data Loss using built in exfiltration policies for Microsoft 365 apps, services and endpoints.
+ AND
• Programming experiences, using Microsoft Information Protection SDK (e.g. PowerShell, C#, Python)
• Desired Microsoft Technology & Industry Equivalent. Certification in one or more of the following areas:
+ Microsoft 365 Security Administrator, Microsoft Security Operations, Cloud Security, CCSP, CEH, OSCP, GSEC.
+ Technical Certification in Microsoft SC-400 - Microsoft Information Protection Administrator)


Additional or Preferred Qualifications (PQs)

• Master's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering,
+ OR related field AND 12+ years experience in technology solutions, practice development, architecture, consulting, and/or cloud/infrastructure technologies
+ OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering,
+ OR related field AND 10+ years experience in technology solutions, practice development, architecture, consulting, and/or cloud/infrastructure technologies
+ OR equivalent experience.
• 6+ years technical sales experience.
• 6+ years project management experience.




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.