Microsoft’s Commercial Solution Area (CSA) sets the sales strategy, leads technical sales, and operations as a hub for the Commercial Solution Areas and Support Services that power the Microsoft Cloud. We work closely with other Microsoft teams and partners, especially Customer Success, Marketing, and the STU, to ensure those solutions meet our customers’ needs.

The main goal of a Microsoft Technology Specialist (TS) is to win the technical decision of customers to purchase and use Microsoft technology and cloud services. The TS is expected to both own and win customers’ technical decisions, as well as find new opportunities through their contacts and engagements for Sales Specialists to pursue. As a TS, you work within a virtual

team of technical, partner and consulting resources to help educate your customers at a technical level, demonstrate, and prove our solutions, and win the technical decision. Being part of this team will allow you to maintain and develop your deep technical expertise across Microsoft and non-Microsoft cloud-based technologies

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

Solution Design and Proof

Demonstrates and oversees demonstrations (e.g., architectural design sessions, and proof of concept [POC] sessions, pilots, hackathons) of solutions based on multiple products and position solutions against competitors. Leverages partner/customer teams as needed to prove capabilities and programmatic framework for re-use by the business.

Adapts and extends architecture patterns to accommodate complex customer requirements and drive integration solutions for industry flavor. Delivers assets that can be leveraged by others in the business.

Applies advanced sales methodologies (e.g., challenger sales) to guide customers through digital transformation solutions and uses innovation to challenge solutions against changing technology (e.g., Power Apps).

Build Strategy

Proactively develops strategic cross-workload/subsidiary and account level responses to specific market threats by identifying market patterns and delivering feedback to business group on trends and needs.

Builds competitive knowledge, documents compete patterns, and shares within the community to drive change and escalations for competitive selling strategies. Acts as a subject matter expert on a particular competition. Delivers competitive knowledge back to product and engineering teams.

Works with local account and marketing teams to shape strategic win and customer success plans and tailors to audience for the local markets using knowledge of Microsoft offerings, their context in the competitive landscape, and broader market trends. Where applicable, builds consumption plans with moderately complex requirements in coordination with Partner and Industry Solutions Delivery teams after customer sign-off.

Scale Customer Engagements

Leverages knowledge of resources (e.g., roles, Microsoft Technology Center [MTC], demo sites, virtual sites, Value Based Delivery [VBD], Customer Success Unit [CSU) and proactively engages product teams (e.g., engineering) to remediate escalated technical blockers by conveying impact and anticipating and addressing future potential blockers based on needs.

Leads and ensures complex technical wins (e.g., cross-workload, cross-team, cross-geo, subsidiary-level impact) by establishing rules of engagement (e.g., role boundaries, handoff strategies), coaching others (e.g., technical sellers, account teams), leveraging knowledge of processes (e.g., Managed Service Provider [MSP], Managed Certified Professional [MCP]), tools, and programs (e.g., FastTrack, End Customer Investment Funds [ECIFs]). Ensures alignment of Microsoft technologies with future sector standards and requirements by working with industry boards and driving customer case studies and references.

Proactively identifies and engages with key customer technical decision makers and influencers while engaging sales team and helping lead sales strategy.

Uses knowledge of customer context, and deep technical, domain, and industry knowledge to build credibility with customers

Education

Acts as a technical thought leader by sharing best practices (e.g., architectures, materials) and regularly delivering content at Microsoft events (e.g., TechReady). Provides insight into how to identify opportunities to increase solutions/portfolio understanding.

Monitors, responds to, and acts as a thought leader on internal tech community posts, establishes and leads vibrant tech communities including community calls, sessions, hackathons, etc., and acts as a mentor to the community.

Builds readiness plans for peers and proactively identifies gaps and new opportunities for learning. Provides insight onto Corporate, business and product groups, sales strategy, and business reviews for impact.

Leverage Partner Ecosystem

Supports partner technical capacity by monitoring and analyzing resources through interactions, communicating with managers, and identifying new partnership opportunities to build subsidiary strategy.

Scales wins through partner in a sell-with environment by promoting the partner within the Microsoft ecosystem (e.g., account teams) and developing deep partner relationships.

Qualifications

Required/minimum qualifications

• Extensive experience in technical pre-sales or technical consulting

• OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field AND technical pre-sales or technical consulting experience

• OR Master's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field AND technical pre-sales or technical consulting experience OR equivalent experience

Additional or preferred qualifications

Certification in relevant technologies or disciplines:

• Microsoft Azure Administrator (AZ-104)

• Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions (Exam AZ-305)

Extensive experience with cloud and hybrid, or on premises infrastructures, architecture designs, migrations, industry standards, and/or technology management.

Extensive experience in technology delivery, or related experience OR equivalent 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 (https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html) .