Are you insatiably curious, deeply passionate about the world of data and artificial intelligence, and ready to take on complex challenges in a dynamic environment? If so, we invite you to join our team as a Senior Technology Specialist - Azure App Innovation.

The mission of the Microsoft App Innovation team is to drive innovation and make a meaningful impact on the world through data-driven and AI-powered solutions. In an era where data and AI play a central role in shaping industries and driving transformation, we are at the forefront of pioneering technologies and strategies.

As a Senior Technology Specialist - Azure App Innovation, you will be a key player in leveraging cutting-edge technologies. You'll work as a technical sales leader and trusted customer advisor, collaborating with internal teams, partners, and consultants to map Microsoft solutions to customer challenges and priorities. Your role involves demonstrating and proving the value of our solutions, ultimately contributing to the achievement and surpassing of quarterly and annual revenue targets.

Your workweek will be dynamic, with 80% focused on engaging with customers—planning, preparation, and various meetings, including technical presentations, demos, and workshops. The remaining 20% will be dedicated to continuously enhancing your technical expertise, staying abreast of industry trends, and understanding the competitive landscape.

At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As a team, we embrace a growth mindset, foster innovation, and collaborate to realize shared goals. Upholding values of respect, integrity, and accountability, we create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

This role offers flexibility, allowing you to work up to 80% from home, with travel percentages varying based on the role's requirements. Join us in shaping the future of data and AI solutions at 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.

In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

Responsibilities

Scale Customer Engagements

• 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.

• Leads and ensures complex technical wins by establishing rules of engagement, coaching others, leveraging knowledge of processes, tools, and programs.

• Ensures alignment of Microsoft technologies with future sector standards and requirements by working with industry boards and driving customer case studies and references.

• Leverages knowledge of resources and proactively engages product teams to remediate escalated technical blockers by conveying impact and anticipating and addressing future potential blockers based on needs.

Leverage Partner Ecosystem

• 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.

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

Build Strategy

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

Solution Design and Proof

• Demonstrates and oversees demonstrations 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 to guide customers through digital transformation solutions and uses innovation to challenge solutions against changing technology

Education

• 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.

• Acts as a technical thought leader by sharing best practices and regularly delivering content at Microsoft events. 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.

Other

• Embody our culture and values

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications

• 7+ years technical pre-sales or technical consulting experience

• OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field AND 6+ years technical pre-sales or technical consulting experience

• OR Master's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field AND 4+ years technical pre-sales or technical consulting experience

• OR equivalent experience.

Additional or Preferred Qualifications

• 8+ years technical pre-sales, technical consulting, or technology delivery, or related experience

• OR equivalent experience.

• 6+ years experience with cloud and hybrid, or on premises infrastructures, architecture designs, migrations, industry standards, and/or technology management.

Technology Specialists IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across Canada is CAD $118,800 - CAD $214,800 per year.

Find additional pay information here: Canada pay information | Microsoft Careers (https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/canada-pay-information.html)

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until April 29, 2024

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) .