Director, Security Cloud Solution Architects

Microsoft•Chicago, IL

About The Position

We are looking for a Director, Security Cloud Solution Architects to join our Financial Services Customer Success organization. This individual should be passionate about leading a team of architects to drive our customers’ security transformation on the Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 Platforms. This is a people management role with accountability for a portfolio of customers and a portion of the Microsoft business results. The Director, Security Cloud Solution Architects leads a team in identifying and evaluating security trends and gathering customer/partner insights to map architecture and digital transformation solutions to customer/partner business outcomes. Supports and guides team in developing and expanding impactful relationships with customer CISOs, C-level technical decision makers (TDMs), and business stakeholders. Coaches team members to focus on customer experience through efficient delivery. Drives adherence to Microsoft standards and recommended practices by setting expectations for the team around methodology and governance to ensure that the team identifies, communicates, and minimizes business and technical risks. Provides team with a holistic perspective of customer/partner challenges, industry trends, and competitor architectures to allow team members to engage with customers/partners, demonstrate Microsoft's value, and develop counter strategy. 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.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, Liberal Arts, or related field AND 8+ years 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.
3+ years people management experience, including managing consultant practice managers, technical sales managers, and/or technical architect managers.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, Liberal Arts, or related field AND 12+ years 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 8+ years experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting OR equivalent experience.
6+ years experience working in a customer-facing role (e.g., internal and/or external).
6+ years experience leading technical projects, teams, or functions.
Technical Certification in Cloud (e.g., Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google, security certifications).
5+ years people management experience, including managing consultant practice managers, technical sales managers, and/or technical architect managers.

Responsibilities

Coaches team on operating according to required operational excellence and proven practice standards throughout all sales stages/activities/tools of record (e.g., pipeline updates, time tracking). Leads team on orchestrating and collaborating across Microsoft and customer/partner teams through on-strategy delivery to achieve customer/partner objectives and increase customer/partner satisfaction. Oversees team on anticipating and managing business and technical risks, adapting methodology and applying governance principles to identify, communicate, and minimize business and technical risks. Executes work in compliance with industry and Microsoft guidelines and procedures. Leads team to continuously prioritize among competing demands in their work and identify where impact occurs with customers, ensuring alignment with business priorities and goals.
Leads team on delivering 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. Coaches team on guiding 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. Provides guidance to team on articulating the value of Unified and supports sellers, partnering with account teams to build consumption plans aligned with appropriate services. Leads efforts to provide feedback to Unified Delivery Team on VBDs to refine and further develop content.
Drives team on anticipating, identifying, escalating, and mitigating blockers using appropriate tools and processes to accelerate solution deployment, value realization and usage/consumption for complex customers/scenarios. Coaches team on proactively applying broad business, technical, industry, and/or enterprise knowledge to architecture or support projects to meet business and information technology (IT) requirements and resolve identified constraints.
Drives team on proactively identifying and anticipating new cross-solution opportunities for Consumption, Usage & Unified expansion (especially Enhanced Solutions) at scale based on business value to customer/partner and clear understanding of the Microsoft value proposition for supported platforms to empower cloud success, foster and strengthen security and resiliency, and drive AI innovation.. Executes change management to ensure team members develop thorough understanding of customer's business and operations to advise on potential solutions. Coaches team on strategically consulting with, actively listening to and respectfully challenging customers/partners, building trust to then advocate for alternative architectures/solutions/approaches that shape and/or enhance customer requirements. Leads team on identifying, anticipating, and evaluating industry trends (e.g., customer industry verticals, information technology [IT] industry), gathering customer/partner insights (e.g., feedback around technical preferences, environments, business needs, competitive landscape), and mapping both existing and novel architecture and digital transformation solutions to customer/partner business outcomes. Leads teams to capture opportunities in appropriate systems, processes, and tools, working collaboratively across the organization to execute on opportunities aligned with Microsoft's Customer Engagement Model.
Coaches team to focusing on customer/partner experience through efficient delivery and ensuring a seamless and connected customer experience. Drives team on realization of customer/partner conditions of success by leveraging an understanding customer goals. Leads team on anticipating, addressing, and leading customer confidence calls to resolve customer/partner dissatisfaction and unmet needs, and creating and executing strategies to improve customer experience, value realization, and acceleration of transformation.
Supports and coaches team on proactively identifying and/or translating customer/partner problems into industry solutions aligned with Microsoft product and platform strategy, creating or improving an existing business model, and explaining 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. Leads team on proactively helping the customer/partner accelerate their adoption and use of Microsoft product/platform strategy-aligned (cross-solution area) solutions. Coaches team on building relationships with, and providing direction to C-suite level technical decision makers (TDMs) up to the C-suite level, and building the bridge between TDMs and business decision makers (BDMs). Leads and elevates interactions 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.
Leads team on proactively acting as the voice of the customer/partner, sharing ideas, feedback, insights, success stories, and strategic/technical input with Engineering teams, Product Offerings teams and internal communities, leveraging relevant insights from feedback tools and systems. Coaches team on identifying and aggregating patterns across customers/partners/territories/industries and leveraging them with relevant industry perspective to develop strategic and actionable insights. Guides team on presenting business cases to program managers to advocate for and influence product roadmaps, decision making, bug fix prioritization, and own and drive initiatives as appropriate.
Actively orchestrates initiatives. Leverages an expansive knowledge of the partner portfolio in their respective solution areas to select and champion the most qualified partners to fulfill complex customer project or needs. Collaborates with Global Partner Solutions (GPS) business stakeholders and Partner Technology Specialist (PTS) leadership in order to lead and oversee the execute initiatives to translate opportunities into action. Fosters technical and solutions coherence across Microsoft partner and sales ecosystems to ensure precise alignment for a specific customer opportunity.
Concentrates on the identification and prioritization of opportunities that resonate with the organization's strategic revenue goals. Directs and elevates the support provided by partner and sales teams to deliver decisive, influential guidance for specific opportunities through proof of concept and technical pre-sales support.
Managers deliver success through empowerment and accountability by modeling, coaching, and caring. Model: Live our culture. Embody our values. Practice our leadership principles. Coach: Define team objectives and outcomes. Enable success across boundaries. Help the team adapt and learn. Care: Attract and retain great people. Know each individual’s capabilities and aspirations. Invest in the growth of others.
Leads team on proactively identifying and anticipating gaps through delivery, communicating those gaps to relevant team members and internal/external stakeholders, and connecting gaps and patterns across business and technology areas that drive changes and improvements to products, IP (both existing and new), technologies, and/or processes/practices that enable solutions to scale across customers. Coaches team on developing and contributing to modifications of Microsoft's structured frameworks and methodologies. Leads team on providing thought leadership and innovation to customers/partners and internal communities at the worldwide level.
Coaches and enables team on leading, mentoring, and maybe assembling virtual teams (v-teams) around technologies and customer/partner challenges, sharing ideas, insights, and strategic, technical input with technical teams, internal communities across the field, and the larger v-team across Microsoft using knowledge of Microsoft architectures and their context in the competitive landscape. Coaches team on demonstrating deep industry knowledge and driving recognition for Microsoft solutions by leading presentations and engagements with external and internal audiences (e.g., Tech Connect, Build, Ignite) Leads team on contributing to and collaborating on intellectual property (IP) and proactively identifying patterns where no IP exists (e.g., CoPilot and AI scenarios) to help build scalable and repeatable models. Participates in and leads external technical and non-technical community events (e.g., conferences, seminars, technical meetups, webcasts, blogs, hackathons) that elevate the Microsoft brand, sharing learnings across internal teams and leading their team to do the same.
Supports and guides team on leveraging market insights and demand signals to assist leadership in identifying relevant areas in which to drive up-skilling and/or accreditations based on demand. Drives team on role modeling 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 influencing team to drive their own technical readiness. Coaches team on acting 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. Ensures team members dedicate time to continuous upskilling efforts, monitoring their efforts and providing guidance where appropriate.