About the job

Do you love working with customers to achieve their business outcomes? Would you love to build expertise around the leading, next generation cloud services? As a Cloud Solution Architect (CSA), you will become part of the next generation of sales leaders at Microsoft. With the aid of best-in-class sales processes, techniques and technologies, you will be empowered to shape customer relationships for a strategic set of Microsoft's customers. These customers are adopting industry-leading products and services for their businesses, education systems or governments. You will serve as the central point of contact for the customer across engagements helping to drive Microsoft's existing cloud & enterprise consumption through developing and managing customer relationships. You'll be responsible for protecting and growing our most dynamic Azure customers. Embracing a challenger mindset, the successful Cloud Solution Architect leads, manages, and orchestrates their virtual teams and closes engagements with customers that produce transformative business outcomes.

The Digital Cloud Acquisition team drives growth for Microsoft by helping customers realize the value of the Microsoft Cloud. Powered by a world-class connected sales and marketing platform, this team leverages marketing insights to reach customers when and where they want to engage digitally to help solve their business problems. We’re powered by the latest innovations in Microsoft Dynamics 365 to engage with customers, collaborate across our global teams, and acquire and retain new business for Microsoft.

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

• Business Relationship Owner: Build coalition of support (IT and business) with customer. Define specific technology outcomes that align to customer strategy. 
• Digital Transformation Leader and Operational Excellence: Lead, drive and manage engagements for repeatable achievement of revenue and consumption targets. 
• Portfolio Management: Manage a dedicated portfolio of customers while preventing churn. 
• Operationally Excellent: Follow processes, systems, and documentation as expected; identifies issues or barriers to efficiency. Recommends improvements and partners to implement solutions. 
• Value Creator: Identify and articulate business value of role and solutions for customer organization through demonstrations, storytelling, etc. to provide evidence of business value in the customer environment. 
• Consumption: Conduct analyses into what customers are using versus needs. Drives greater consumption (cloud and support) with customers based on analysis of both usage and needs. Leverages insights to provide guidance and recommendations to customers; drives, retains, and optimizes customer consumption 
• Technical Acumen: Apply technical knowledge and customer insights to create a modernization roadmap. Architect solutions to meet business and IT needs, ensuring technical viability of new projects and successful deployments, while orchestrating key resources and infusing key Infrastructure technologies 
• Executive Presence: Engage with and influence business and IT decision makers by providing feedback or insights to help customers define and realize their digital and business transformational targets. Influences others to help meet customer needs and prioritize efforts accordingly. Recognizes systemic issues to resolve. 
• Technical Leadership: Leverage best practices to guide customer strategy and future growth for Microsoft by cultivating customer affinity with Microsoft programs/solutions that drive impact for the customer and establishing Microsoft as a leader. Provide feedback to Microsoft on customer development needs, customer blockers, or mitigation strategies. 
• Virtual Leader: Orchestrate activities across Microsoft and Partner resources to maximize business results and customer success. 
• Customer Obsessed: Be the Voice of the Customer; Share customer insights, best practices, and connect with internal teams to remove key blockers. 
• Build Customer Knowledge: Assess the Customers' knowledge of Azure platform and overall cloud readiness to support customers through a structured learning plan and ensure its delivery through partners. 
• Leading at the Edge: Leverage social, digital, video, chat, phone and demonstration environments to effectively reach, sell to and manage Microsoft customers 
• Competitive Spirit: Meet and exceed targets for net-new revenue and sales pipeline; Accurately forecasting new usage and/or churn risks that impact portfolio pipeline. 
• Continuous Learner: Maintain technical skills and knowledge of market trends and competitive insights; collaborate and share with the technical community. 
• Microsoft Champion: Be an Azure Platform evangelist with customers, partners and external communities. 

Qualifications

• Technical architect, technical consulting, design and implementation, and/or technical sales experience 
• OR relevant certifications from Microsoft or competitive platforms AND technical architect, technical consulting, design and implementation, and/or technical sales experience 
• OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology (IT), Engineering, or related field AND technical architect, technical consulting, design and implementation, and/or technical sales experience 
• OR equivalent experience.

Professional

• Sales and negotiation experience, technical architect, technical consulting, design and implementation, technical sales experience, or related work or internship experience OR equivalent experience. 
• Experience in one or more of the following: designing architecture, networking, container services, data center migrations or database administration, design and architect experience in data analytics, coding/development, cloud-based solution designs, migrations or management of technology. 
• Relevant certifications from Microsoft of competitive platforms of similar product (e.g., AZ104 + AZ 303/304/ or 305, DP 203/204) OR equivalent certifications (AWS, GCP). 

• Dutch or spanish and English language 

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.