Director of Azure Technology Specialists

In Small, Medium, Corporate (SMC) and Digital Sales, we have set out with the purpose of empowering our customers through the unique value of the Microsoft cloud by building a globally led, digital-first scale organization aligned with partners. Dedicated to one of the fastest growing customer segments, SMC and Digital Sales is on pace to be Microsoft's next $100 billion-dollar business - this is where you come in!  As part of local subsidiaries or Digital Sales centers around the world, you will support a dedicated set of customers in identifying and achieving their business objectives through best-in-class digital engagement and partner co-selling. You will also have an opportunity to work cross-collaboratively while living our shared SMC and Digital Sales Culture priorities: Diversity and Inclusivity, Wellbeing, Sustainability, and Learning. If you have been described as customer obsessed and have a passion for digital-first solutions, we invite you to learn more about the SMC and Digital Sales organization and the value we deliver to our customers, partners, and one another, every day.  

The Director of Azure Technology Specialists is a senior leader within our SMC and Digital Startups and ISV [Independent Software Vendors] organization responsible for leading and developing a team of high performing Azure Technology Specialists across Azure Core, App Innovation, and Data & AI solutions.  You and your team will act as trusted advisors and subject matter experts to drive technical decisions with customers that help them achieve business value with the Microsoft Platform, and thereby secure long-term sustainable growth for Microsoft. You will be a key leader in helping customers embrace and succeed through digital transformation, while honing your solution sales and deepening your cloud expertise. This is a unique opportunity for a strategic thinker to execute deals that drive significant publicity, competitive share, and revenue for the Microsoft Azure Cloud platform. Senior leaders across Microsoft are making an incredible commitment to this initiative and we are rapidly scaling this program, looking for new talent to join our expanding team.  This role is flexible in that you can work up to 50% from home. If you have been described as customer obsessed, we invite you apply today! 

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. 

Required/Minimum Qualifications

• Relevant certifications from Microsoft or competitive platforms AND 5+ years technical pre-sales or technical consulting experience
  • OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering or related field AND 6+ years technical pre-sales or technical consulting experience
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 5+ years experience with Microsoft Azure Cloud or Azure Data & AI services, or equivalent.

Additional or Preferred Qualifications

• 10+ years technical pre-sales, technical consulting, or related experience.
• 6+ years experience with cloud and hybrid, or on premises infrastructures, architecture designs, migrations, industry standards, and/or technology management.
• 3+ years people management experience (including leading virtual teams).
• Prior work experience in other cloud companies
• Deep technical understanding of cloud deployment scenarios and workloads
• Ability to stay up to date on new/improved Azure AI scenarios and workloads 
• Ability to act on Customer Escalation and needs
• Experience in Generative AI, including experience in Azure Data & AI services (or equivalent), AI open-source ecosystem , Cognitive Services, Azure Cognitive Search, Azure Open AI, Prompt Engineering, LLM fine turning, chaining technology, and Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures. 
• Certification in the following technologies:  Cloud, Networking, Security, cloud-native application architecture (i.e., containers, microservices, API management), modern software development techniques like DevOps and CI/CD tool chains (i.e., Jenkins, Spinnaker, Azure developer services, GitHub) and container orchestration systems (i.e., Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud Foundry, Azure Kubernetes Service, GitHub).    
• Certification in relevant (Microsoft or industry) technologies or disciplines (e.g. Azure Architect and Development exams, Cloud Platform Technologies, Information Security, Architecture).   

Digital Technology Specialists M5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $129,200 - $248,800 per year. There is a 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 $162,000 - $268,900 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until June 27, 2024

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.  We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

#SMCDSCareer

People Management

• Achieve success through empowerment and accountability by modeling, coaching, and caring.  
• Develop, lead and coach a diverse and high-performing technology specialists’ team that helps customers make sound technical decisions and maximize the adoption and value of Microsoft solutions.
• Attract the best technical sales talents from the market, develop, inspire, motivate, and recognize talent, and ensure they can grow.
• Identify growth opportunities, building development plans with direct reports, and conducting development discussions.
• Establish and communicate performance expectations and leads their team to accept change and retain performance levels.

Scale Customer Engagements

• Enable and empower teams to influence customer decisions and ensure technical wins by streamlining processes and managing the flow of wins, leveraging deep knowledge of processes, aligning goals across solution areas and facilitating cross-selling with various workloads.
• Orchestrate team resources and coach your team to maximize the impact of customer engagements and drive mid-to long-term strategy through cross-workload capacity planning, prioritization, and utilization of resources.
• Proactively plan team resources and influence future blueprints and support your team to validate a effective business case for investment and translate technology complexity into business impact.
• Apply technical knowledge to architect solutions that meet business and IT needs, create Data Platform, Data Migration Strategy, Analytics and AI roadmaps, and ensure long term technical viability of new deployments, infusing key analytics technologies where appropriate (e.g. Azure OpenAI, Azure Synapse, Azure ML, Azure Cognitive Services, Azure Data Factory, Big Data, Data Lake, Azure Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, etc.)
• Increase deal velocity by assessing the progress of technical engagements at every stage, and by orchestrating your team, other Microsoft technical resources and partners on digital transformation deals.
• Provide technical expertise to customers/partners and share knowledge on a specific platform or market, positioning Microsoft products, solutions, and/or services against competitors, and acting as a thought leader to help their team connect Microsoft solutions to customer business impact.
• Contribute to setting up the events and promoting best practice sharing across subsidiaries.

Scale Through Partners and Build Strategy

• Maximize area-level capacity and capabilities of scaling through partners by coaching the team to grow partner network, identifying gaps and promoting Microsoft within the Microsoft ecosystem (e.g., account teams).
• Raise escalations or alleviate blockers through collaboration with manager-level counterparts in cross-functional groups. 
• Build compete strategy, coach, and provide support to internal teams and work with local marketing teams to shape corporate domain messages. 

Solution Design and Proof

• Oversee and coach team in guiding customers through digital transformation solutions and applying advanced sales methodologies, while envisioning new and innovative solutions that use Microsoft technology to meet customer needs and identifying new technical and business trends serving as the voice of the customer to Microsoft. 
• Encourage Technical Specialists to build deep technical community participation and the importance of gathering and sharing customer insight.

Education

• Enable and empower your team to develop technical expertise and act as a technical thought leader by sharing best practices.
• Infuse a learning culture in your team to build deep skills in Azure technologies

• Collaborate with your team to build a deep understanding of Microsoft Cloud architecture, aligning it with the broader Microsoft enterprise narrative. Leverage consultative and professional skills, along with industry-specific fluency, to enhance your architectural expertise.

 Embody our culture and values