[Hiring] Cloud Solution Architect Manager @Microsoft

Role Description

The AI Business Solutions (ABS) Cloud Solution Architect Manager leads a high-performing team of Cloud Solution Architects responsible for helping State, Local Government & Education institutions realize measurable business value from their investments in Microsoft technologies. The role combines strategic leadership, technical depth, customer success, operational excellence, and talent development to accelerate customer transformation through AI, Copilot, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, and related Microsoft solutions via our Microsoft Unified Services contracts.

As a people leader, the CSA Manager drives customer outcomes through empowerment, accountability, coaching, and collaboration while fostering a culture of innovation, growth mindset, continuous learning, and customer obsession. The position plays a critical role in enabling customer adoption, usage growth, technical readiness, and business impact across a diverse customer portfolio.

Responsibilities

• Coaches team on operating according to required operational excellence and proven practice standards throughout all sales stages/activities/tools of record (e.g., pipeline updates, time tracking).
• Leads team on orchestrating and collaborating across Microsoft and customer/partner teams through on-strategy delivery to achieve customer/partner objectives and increase customer/partner satisfaction.
• Oversees team on anticipating and managing business and technical risks, adapting methodology and applying governance principles to identify, communicate, and minimize business and technical risks.
• Executes work in compliance with industry and Microsoft guidelines and procedures.
• Drives team on anticipating, identifying, escalating, and mitigating blockers using appropriate tools and processes to accelerate solution deployment, value realization and usage/consumption for complex customers/scenarios.
• Coaches team on proactively applying 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.
• Leads team on delivering solutions in line with company methodologies (e.g., product offerings such as value-based deliverables [VBDs], advice, training, technical validation).
• Leveraging knowledge of change management proven practices and/or involving the change management team, proactively helps the customer deploy for long-term organizational adoption to increase customer satisfaction and drive consumption/usage.
• Coaches team on guiding complex customers/partners towards a well-architected (e.g., secure, resilient, artificial intelligence [AI]-enabled), and cost- and performance-optimized solution to increase retention and expansion opportunities.
• Provides guidance to team on articulating the value of Unified and supports sellers, partnering with account teams to build consumption plans aligned with appropriate services.
• Drives team on proactively identifying and anticipating new cross-solution opportunities for Consumption, Usage & Unified expansion (especially Enhanced Solutions) at scale based on business value to customer/partner.
• Executes change management to ensure team members develop thorough understanding of customer's business and operations to advise on potential solutions.
• Coaches team on strategically consulting with, actively listening to and respectfully challenging customers/partners, building trust to then advocate for alternative architectures/solutions/approaches that shape and/or enhance customer requirements.
• Leads team on identifying, anticipating, and evaluating industry trends (e.g., customer industry verticals, information technology [IT] industry).
• Leads teams to capture opportunities in appropriate systems, processes, and tools, working collaboratively across the organization to execute on opportunities aligned with Microsoft's Customer Engagement Model.
• Coaches team to focus on customer/partner experience through efficient delivery and ensuring a seamless and connected customer experience.
• Drives team on realization of customer/partner conditions of success by leveraging an understanding of customer goals.
• Leads team on anticipating, addressing, and leading customer confidence calls to resolve customer/partner dissatisfaction and unmet needs.
• Creates and executes strategies to improve customer experience, value realization, and acceleration of transformation.
• Supports and coaches team on proactively identifying and/or translating customer/partner problems into industry solutions aligned with Microsoft product and platform strategy.
• Leads team on proactively helping the customer/partner accelerate their adoption and use of Microsoft product/platform strategy-aligned solutions.
• Coaches team on building relationships with, and providing direction to C-suite level technical decision makers (TDMs) up to the C-suite level.
• Leads and elevates interactions needed with customers/partners' Chief Information Office (CIO), Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), and other C-level (CXO) roles.
• Leads team on proactively acting as the voice of the customer/partner, sharing ideas, feedback, insights, success stories, and strategic/technical input with Engineering teams.
• Coaches team on identifying and aggregating patterns across customers/partners/territories/industries and leveraging them with relevant industry perspective to develop strategic and actionable insights.
• Guides team on presenting business cases to program managers to advocate for and influence product roadmaps, decision making, bug fix prioritization, and own and drive initiatives as appropriate.
• Concentrates on the identification and prioritization of opportunities that resonate with the organization's strategic revenue goals.
• Directs and elevates the support provided by partner and sales teams to deliver decisive, influential guidance for specific opportunities.
• Actively orchestrates initiatives and leverages an expansive knowledge of the partner portfolio in their respective solution areas.
• Collaborates with Global Partner Solutions (GPS) business stakeholders and Partner Technology Specialist (PTS) leadership.
• Fosters technical and solutions coherence across Microsoft partner and sales ecosystems.
• Managers deliver success through empowerment and accountability by modeling, coaching, and caring.
• Leads team on proactively identifying and anticipating gaps through delivery, communicating those gaps to relevant team members and stakeholders.
• Coaches team on developing and contributing to modifications of Microsoft's structured frameworks and methodologies.
• Leads team on providing thought leadership and innovation to customers/partners and internal communities at the worldwide level.
• Coaches and enables team on leading, mentoring, and assembling virtual teams (v-teams) around technologies and customer/partner challenges.
• Coaches team on demonstrating deep industry knowledge and driving recognition for Microsoft solutions.
• Leads team on contributing to and collaborating on intellectual property (IP) and proactively identifying patterns where no IP exists.
• Participates in and leads external technical and non-technical community events that elevate the Microsoft brand.
• Supports and guides team on leveraging market insights and demand signals to assist leadership in identifying relevant areas for up-skilling and/or accreditations.
• Drives team on role modeling technical readiness, both depth-aligned to solution area priorities and breadth-aligned to Customer Success Unit (CSU)/corporate initiatives.
• Coaches team on acting as a mentor, leading readiness and upskilling activities in the team/organization.
• Ensures team members dedicate time to continuous upskilling efforts, monitoring their efforts and providing guidance where appropriate.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, Liberal Arts, or related field AND 8+ 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.
• 3+ years people management experience, including managing consultant practice managers, technical sales managers, and/or technical architect managers.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, Liberal Arts, 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, Liberal Arts, or related field AND 8+ years experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting OR equivalent experience.
• 6+ years experience working in a customer-facing role (e.g., internal and/or external).
• 6+ years experience leading technical projects, teams, or functions.
• Technical Certification in Cloud (e.g., Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google, security certifications).
• 5+ years people management experience, including managing consultant practice managers, technical sales managers, and/or technical architect managers.

Benefits

• Cloud Solution Architecture M5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $130,900 - $251,900 per year.
• 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 $165,600 - $272,300 per year.
• Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.

Company Description

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. 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 with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.