Cloud Solution Architect

Overview Join Retail & Consumer Goods as the Senior Cloud Solution Architect is a senior technical leader responsible for driving customer cloud adoption, solution architecture excellence, and consumption growth across Retail & Consumer Goods customers . This role partners closely with enterprise retail customers, account teams, and partners to design, optimize, and scale secure, resilient, and high‑performing Microsoft cloud solutions aligned to customer business outcomes.

The CSA operates with significant autonomy , leads complex multi‑workload architectures , and influences technical strategy across large or strategically important retail and consumer goods accounts. The role focuses on accelerating time‑to‑value , reducing technical risk, and expanding cloud consumption through architectural leadership and trusted‑advisor engagement.

Responsibilities Business Impact

• Delivers solutions in line with company methodologies (e.g., product offerings such as value-based deliverables [VBDs], advice, training, technical validation), ensuring proven practices and patterns are followed to prepare complex customers for operational readiness and achievement of their business goals and targets.
• 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.
• Guides 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.
• Articulates the value of Unified and supports sellers, partnering with account teams to build consumption plans aligned with appropriate services.
• Provides feedback to Unified Delivery Team on VBDs to refine and further develop content.

Customer Centricity

• Proactively identifies and/or translates customer/partner problems into industry solutions aligned with Microsoft product and platform strategy, creates or improves an existing business model, and explains why and/or how they meet customer/partner outcomes and return on investment (ROI) goals (e.g., via proof of concept, minimally viable product [MVP], rapid prototype) relative to competitive offerings.
• Proactively helps the customer/partner accelerate their adoption and use of Microsoft product/platform strategy-aligned (cross-solution area) solutions.
• Builds relationships with, and provides direction to technical decision makers (TDMs) up to the C-suite level, and builds the bridge between TDMs and business decision makers (BDMs).
• Leads and elevates interactions as needed with customers/partners' Chief Information Office (CIO), Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), and other C-level (CXO) roles to bridge understanding of security, compliance, operational and risk requirements across BDMs, TDMs, CIO and CISO teams, appropriately engaging additional subject matter experts when deeper expertise is required.

Partner Specialization

• Identifies and directs attention to multiple, strategic opportunities (e.g., launch deals) that align with revenue goals, and orchestrates growth of solution utilization pipeline with partners.
• Leads assistance with partner and sales teams to bring clarity to specific, complex opportunities through proof of concept and technical pre-sales support.
• Understands and anticipates solution area-specific market opportunities (e.g., competitor insights) and proactively leads initiatives to address them by supporting, assembling, and leading a v-team. Influences, challenges, and supports partners in developing scalable offerings, practices, products, and solutions, and investing and adopting new technologies at scale of the customer.

Technical Leadership

• Leverages market insights and demand signals to assist leadership in identifying relevant areas in which to drive up-skilling and/or accreditations based on demand.
• Role models technical readiness, both depth-aligned to solution area priorities and breadth-aligned to Customer Success Unit (CSU)/corporate initiatives (e.g., security, resilience, AI), and influences team to drive their own technical readiness.
• Acts as a mentor, leading readiness and upskilling activities in the team/organization by educating colleagues on technical and non-technical concepts and sharing proven practices.

Qualifications Required/minimum qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, Liberal Arts, or related field AND extensive 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.

Additional Or Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, Liberal Arts, or related field AND full-scale 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 significant experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting
• OR equivalent experience.
• Extensive experience working in a customer-facing role (e.g., internal and/or external).
• Extensive years experience leading technical projects.
• Technical Certification in Cloud (e.g., Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google, security certifications).

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

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.