Senior Partner Solution Architect

Job Description

Overview

The Senior Partner Solution Architect (PSA) within the GPS UK Independent Software Vendor (ISV) team identifies and evaluates industry trends, gathers customer/partner insights, and maps architecture and digital transformation solutions to customer/partner business outcomes - especially around AI, Data and Marketplace opportunities. They develop and expand existing impactful relationships with customer and partner architects, C-level technical decision makers (TDMs), and business stakeholders (to the extent that the customer/partner will call for consultation without being prompted). PSAs guide other team members to focus on customer/partner experience through efficient delivery.

The role drives their team in operating and optimizing complex and high-impact situations for strategic customers/partners in collaboration with internal stakeholders and leads the adoption of Microsoft offerings based on analysis/differentiation of Microsoft and competitor products to influence the industry-wide direction for specific architecture(s). They will connect gaps and patterns across business and technology areas, and drives changes and improvements to existing intellectual property (IP), technologies, and/or processes that enable solutions to scale across customers/partner. They will lead virtual teams around technologies and customer/partner challenges by sharing ideas, insights, and strategic, technical input with technical teams, internal communities across the field, and the larger virtual team across Microsoft using knowledge of Microsoft architectures and their context in the competitive landscape - including contributing to the wider ecosystem through thought leadership.

The ISV team within the Global Partner Solutions (GPS) team works with UK software makers to plan and build innovative solutions that meet custom demands – focused on AI design wins, Copilot and Marketplace opportunities. The GPS team is a sales organization accountable for the commercial partner business at Microsoft, and the mission is to build and sell Microsoft Cloud applications, services and devices with partners, empowering people, and organizations to achieve more. Join our team as an ISV Partner Technology Strategist and play a pivotal role in shaping the future of digital transformation for our partners. By leveraging your strategic mindset, technical expertise, and persuasive communication skills, you will drive our partners' success and unlock new possibilities in the ever-evolving world of technology.

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

• Technical Leadership
  • Shares ideas, insights, and strategic technical input with technical teams, internal communities across the field, and the larger virtual team across Microsoft using a thorough knowledge of specific Microsoft products and their context in the competitive landscape. Participates in external technical community events (e.g., conferences, seminars, technical meetups, Webcasts, blogs, hackathons) and shares learnings with the internal team.
  • Generates new ideas for changes and improvements to existing intellectual property (IP), technologies, and processes for designated customers/partners. Drives opportunities for IP reuse, best practice sharing, and consumption acceleration. Proactively identifies gaps through delivery and communicating those gaps to others (e.g., Leadership, managed intellectual property [MIP], Design, and Governance). Applies subject matter expertise to develop new IP that fills identified gaps.

• Business Impact
  • Proactively uses knowledge of the products, services, and value propositions of Microsoft and its competitors in customer/partner conversations to identify growth opportunities based on knowledge of customer/partner needs. Contributes to increase in consumption and aligns with Customer Success Account Management or other Account Team members on customer/partner priorities to drive growth in consumption via cost optimization, operational excellence performance efficiency, and security. Drives architecture design, resiliency reviews, and technical optimization that result in production deployment application and increase customer/partner usage and consumption. Ensures that the customer/partner's application has as few points of failure as possible. Consults and provides thought leadership for technical solution design, development, and deployment and supports the customer/partner throughout implementation to achieve value outcomes and Microsoft's Customer Promise.
  • Drives customer/partner relationships to anticipate, identify, escalate, and work to resolve technical blockers to accelerate consumption and solution implementations (e.g., by application of technical capabilities). Routes non-technical issues for removal by the appropriate party. Applies broad business and technical knowledge across various architecture or other Microsoft solutions to meet business and information technology (IT) requirements and resolve identified technical constraints. Shapes and enhances customers' requirements.

• Customer Centricity
  • Actively listens and respectfully challenges customers/partners when going in the wrong direction, presents insights and alternatives, and takes action appropriately.
  • Guides other team members to focus on customer/partner experience through efficient delivery and ensuring a seamless and connected customer experience. Supports definition of customer/partner conditions of success. Anticipates customer/partner dissatisfaction and unmet needs and executes strategies to improve experience, value realization, and acceleration of customer transformation.
  • Gathers customer/partner insights (e.g., feedback around technical preferences, environments, business needs, competitive landscape), and maps architecture and digital transformation solutions to customer/partner business outcomes. Acts as the voice of the customer (VOC)/partner by driving new feedback, insights, and resources across internal teams to add and prioritize. Represents the customer/partner to internal teams (e.g., Engineering) to shape products and services by providing insights across the territory. Advocates for the customer/partner at all opportunities and shares customer success stories with the wider internal team.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

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

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of the Microsoft AI technologies and wider tech platform, project management, technical sales, and technical account management.
• Experience of app and web development, developer experience and DevOps/MLOps/LLMOps
• Inclusive and collaborative approach to driving teamwork and cross-team alignment.
• Problem-solving mentality, leveraging internal and/or external resources, conflict resolution, and follow-through with partners.