Overview

Microsoft Industry Solutions Delivery is a global organization hosting over 6,000 strategic sellers, industry and technology architects, engineers, thought leaders, and consultants who work together to help our customers realize their full potential through accelerated adoption and productive use of Microsoft technologies. As a Solution Architect within UK & Ireland Area Delivery, you will lead the technical design and delivery of complex Cloud and AI engagements for strategic customers, translating business goals into robust, secure and scalable architectures. Working alongside consultants and delivery leads, you will drive customer trust, technical quality and measurable business outcomes across major UK&I accounts.

Responsibilities

Understanding Customer/Partner Technical Environment

• Gathers customer/partner insights from a broad range of stakeholders as well as the main business sponsor to shape and form both the definition and ongoing execution of projects.
• Identifies and evaluates industry trends (customer industry verticals, information technology [IT] industry).
• Adapts business models, plans, and solutions to insights.
• Works with customer/partner stakeholders (e.g., Enterprise Architects, Security Team, Development Team, Operations Team) and business sponsor to socialize both the business solution and the project approach to determine if changes are needed to the business solution.
• Where the cost of change is accepted by the customer, shares this feedback with the project team and the broader account team to make the necessary adjustments using mechanisms such as updating the solution approach and projected costs in presales and change requests in delivery.
• Contributes to Microsoft-centric operations and cadences to align with customer feedback.
• Uses evidence-based approach to represent the customer/partner as a customer advocate and shares insights with Product Engineering teams and the business with a view to improving Microsoft technologies, products, services, and offerings such that they can better meet customer/partner needs across a territory.

Architecture Design and Deployment

• Leverages a structured approach to Architecture Projects using existing methodologies (e.g., Waterfall, Agile, Iterative) that make use of existing reference architecture and established architectural styles and design patterns.
• Proposes and develops new solutions to scale across multiple customers/partners.
• Builds and maintains an architecture description document, an architecture decisions log, and a requirements/constraints traceability matrix to ensure the rationale for the business solution's Architecture is known and understood.
• Defines and documents the architecture through an architecture description document, an architecture decisions log, and a requirements/constraints traceability matrix to communicate the value proposition of the business solution along with the project approach.
• Collaborates with the Project Manager to jointly drive project/technical governance of the design, build, and deployment, using enterprise architecture processes and ensuring quality control through peer review.
• Works with customers to understand and demonstrate business value (e.g., release of revenue, cost savings) that the business solution realize.
• Works with the business sponsor and customer/partner stakeholders (e.g., Business users, Enterprise Architects, Security Team, Operations Team) to gather and ratify requirements and constraints.
• Manages and resolves complex ambiguity in the requirements and constraints and documents assumptions and implications where it cannot be resolved.
• Maintains the requirements/constraints traceability matrix to prove that solution components have a rationale/justification for inclusion in the architecture of the business solution.
• Collaborates with the Account Team and/or Bid Team to understand the business solution/problem.
• Drives agreement, based on the customer’s priorities, requirements/constraints, approach, principles, concepts, and expectations.
• Builds and documents a realistically costed, advanced/complex Solution Approach with traceability of requirements, constraints, decisions, and tradeoffs that balances risk, technical credibility, and technical innovation to meet customer need, predominantly based on existing solution offerings and/or reference architecture.
• Jointly leads the implementation in close partnership with the Project Manager.
• Leads oversight and governance and establishment of quality practices and standards to realize the business solution.
• Uses a cohesive build methodology with an agreed release schedule and timeline so the solution can be transitioned to live operations, leveraging solution expertise.
• Ensures communication of and adherence to the pre-sales value proposition.
• Anticipates and identifies scenarios that could slow or impede pre-sales/delivery.
• Orchestrates the broader Microsoft team to address technical blockers and works with account/project team to resolve non-technical issues.
• Reports significant problems to Microsoft management and resolves escalations when needed.
• Plans a way forward in complex and ambiguous situations with an innovative approach and durable design.
• Delegates and leverages specialist skills of others to drive technical alignment across internal/external teams.
• Predominantly utilises Microsoft Azure services for solution design and development, demonstrates a deep understanding of Azure and M365 cloud services to develop complex customer solutions.
• Utilises a background in software product development or data platform implementation, as well as a strong understanding of current and emerging AI and machine learning services.
• Adopts the use of rapid POCs to prototype and prove capabilities.
• Leverages AI services in all aspects of the role, accelerating project delivery, increasing quality and improving solution security, delivering greater value to Microsoft's customers than possible with traditional approaches.
• Uses familiarity with Generative AI and Machine Learning to enhance customer solutions.