Principal Solution Engineer

Microsoft • Raleigh, NC

1d

About The Position

Work with multinational enterprise customers to achieve their business goals using Azure as their platform of choice. Open doors, become a trusted technical adviser, uncover opportunities and turn customer ambitions into practical solutions that deliver business value. Bring an enterprise-architecture mindset and broad cloud understanding together with hands-on applications and artificial intelligence expertise, understanding how complete solutions fit together and when to involve specialists.

This role offers autonomy and influence across customer organizations. Own the technical direction of complex opportunities, align teams when priorities are unclear, and take responsibility for agreed technical outcomes. Engage from executive conversations through practical demonstrations, drawing on account teams, specialists and partners.

At Microsoft, the mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. The company partners with customers to deliver trusted, impactful solutions, guided by a growth-mindset culture, responsible innovation, and shared progress for people, teams and customers.

Requirements

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology or a related field and 4+ years of technical pre-sales or technical consulting experience; OR bachelor's degree in one of these areas and 6+ years of such experience; OR 7+ years of technical pre-sales or technical consulting experience; OR equivalent experience.
• Microsoft is unable to sponsor a work visa for this role due to the nature of the job duties.

Nice To Haves

• 8+ years of technical pre-sales, technical consulting, technology delivery or related experience, or equivalent experience.
• 6+ years of experience with cloud and hybrid or on-premises infrastructures, architecture designs, migrations, industry standards and/or technology management.
• Certification in relevant technologies or disciplines, such as Office 365, Power BI, Azure Architect and Development exams, Cloud Platform Technologies, Information Security or Architecture.

Responsibilities

• Proactively build customer access, discover unmet needs across Azure, and create technical opportunities that deliver business value.
• Independently lead complex engagements spanning multiple technologies, teams and customer locations.
• Align stakeholders, resolve competing priorities and drive technical decisions through discovery, workshops and demonstrations.
• Help customers modernise applications using Azure and cloud-native approaches while balancing existing investments with future business needs.
• Guide modern software delivery and developer productivity, including GitHub and GitHub Copilot.
• Shape intelligent applications and agent solutions using Microsoft Foundry, Copilot technologies and enterprise data, including Microsoft Fabric where relevant.
• Build focused prototypes and demonstrations to test customer ideas, show value and guide secure, responsible AI adoption.
• Take an end-to-end view across Azure infrastructure, networking, identity, security, data, applications and AI, including hybrid environments.
• Adapt and extend architecture patterns for complex customer requirements.
• Recommend trade-offs between business value, security, reliability and cost, and develop practical roadmaps rather than isolated product designs.
• Work with specialists, customer success and partners to help customers progress from architecture to adoption.
• Build trusted relationships with developers, architects and senior business and technical stakeholders; listen, challenge constructively and build consensus.
• Understand customer priorities, programmes and decision-makers, aligning technical engagement with wider business and transformation strategy.
• Connect technical choices to customer outcomes and differentiated Microsoft value, building a clear case for investment.
• Qualify technical opportunities based on clear customer needs and business value, and agree meaningful next steps.
• Shape opportunity-growth strategies with account teams, using data and insights to guide investment decisions and overcome technical barriers.
• Lead collaboration across teams and coach technical colleagues and account teams.
• Create reusable architectures and approaches from customer engagements and help others apply them to improve outcomes.
• Maintain hands-on learning, relevant skills and certifications, and demonstrate inclusion, integrity and customer focus.

Benefits

• Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation; further details are linked in the posting.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal