Data and AI Architect, Senior Manager

Avanade•Chicago, IL

14d•Hybrid

About The Position

As a Microsoft-specialized Agentic AI Senior Manager in AMBG, you will lead origination and pre-sales solutioning for high-impact opportunities, steer C-suite conversations, and provide technical leadership across the Microsoft AI platform. You’ll create compelling visions and roadmaps, architect solution approaches (from POV to pilot to scaled deployment), and orchestrate cross-functional teams from Accenture, Avanade, and Microsoft to win and deliver transformative outcomes.

Requirements

Minimum of 10 years in consulting/technology, including 5+ years leading pre-sales solutioning or architecture for cloud/data/AI programs, ideally on Microsoft.
Minimum of 10 years of experience and ability to craft solution options, estimates, delivery models, and risk mitigations; collaborate with deal teams on pricing, T&Cs, and governance.
Minimum of 3 years of hands-on architecture or supervision experience with Microsoft Foundry, Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Search, Azure AI Agent Service, Azure ML, Prompt Flow/evaluations, and Microsoft Fabric; fluency in when to use Copilot Studio vs. pro-code approaches.
Minimum of 10 years of experience leading multi-disciplinary teams across strategy, industry, data/AI engineering, and change management; strong coaching and “lead-from-the-front” ethos.
Bachelor's degree or equivalent (minimum 12 years) work experience. (If Associate’s Degree, must have minimum 6 years work experience).
Practical knowledge of Responsible AI, identity, security, data governance, and deployment guardrails for enterprise AI.
Strong, C-level communication and consulting skills and ability to engage business and technology stakeholders.
Ability to lead large, multidisciplinary technical teams.
Structured, value-driven, problem-solving mindset.

Nice To Haves

You’ve led end-to-end agentic AI business process transformations.
You’ve shipped Copilot Studio solutions and Azure AI Foundry agents in regulated industries (FS, H&PS), including content safety, evals, and monitoring.
You bring industry POVs (e.g., Fabric-enabled data modernization → agentic workflows → function transformation) and can connect them to measurable business KPIs.

Responsibilities

Own end-to-end pursuit leadership for agentic AI opportunities: discovery, value hypothesis, solution blueprint, estimation, risk/RAI posture, and commercial constructs; partner closely with AMBG sellers and Microsoft field teams.
Translate business strategies into technical architectures using Microsoft 365 Copilot, Dynamics 365 Copilots, Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry (Azure AI Studio), Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Search, Azure AI Agent Service, Azure ML, and Microsoft Fabric.
Build defendable, scalable proposals and SOWs; align solution scope, staffing model, and delivery approach to client outcomes and risk profile.
Craft crisp, board-level narratives that connect industry problems to agentic AI outcomes; use data-backed storytelling to secure executive sponsorship and funding.
Facilitate exec workshops to shape transformation agendas, operating models, value cases, and governance for Copilots and autonomous agents.
Define reference architectures and patterns for agentic workflows (planning, reasoning, tools, memory), orchestration, retrieval (RAG), evaluation, guardrails, and observability on Azure.
Guide teams building POCs and accelerators with Copilot Studio (low-code) and Azure AI Foundry (pro-code), including Prompt Flow-based evals, content safety, and end-to-end MLOps/GenAIOps.
Ensure secure-by-design solutions across identity, data, Responsible AI, compliance, and lifecycle governance for enterprise deployment.
Create phased roadmaps (POV → pilot → scaled rollout), acceptance criteria, KPIs, and value tracking to realize outcomes post-sale.
Coach and upskill cross-functional teams (strategy, industry, data/AI, Modern Work, Security) to deliver repeatable outcomes and reuse accelerators.
Operate as one with Accenture, Avanade, and Microsoft—co-innovating, co-selling, and co-delivering; align to Microsoft programs and co-funding where appropriate.