Director Cloud Solution Architect
Microsoft · Karnataka
OverviewThe Customer Success Unit brings together deep technical expertise and customer success leadership to help customers achieve meaningful business outcomes and realize value from their Microsoft investments. Data and AI sit at the center of every organization's transformation, and our customers are looking to Microsoft to help them modernize their data estates, unlock insights, and build secure, responsible, production-grade AI solutions.
As the Cloud Solution Architect (CSA) Manager – Data & AI, you will lead, coach, and develop a team of Cloud Solution Architects who help customers and partners design, deploy, and scale solutions across Microsoft's Data & AI portfolio — including Microsoft Fabric, Azure Databricks, Azure SQL and Cosmos DB, Power BI, Microsoft Foundry (Azure AI Foundry), Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search, and agentic AI solutions. You will guide the team in translating customer business challenges into data and AI architectures, removing technical blockers, driving operational readiness, accelerating consumption and usage growth, and delivering solutions aligned with Microsoft methodologies and proven practices.
This opportunity will allow you to strengthen your people leadership, deepen your expertise in data platforms and AI, and help scale repeatable Data & AI patterns and best practices across a diverse portfolio of strategic customers.
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
Business Impact
Coaches the team on operating to required operational excellence and proven practice standards across all engagement stages, activities, and tools of record (e.g., pipeline updates, consumption tracking, time tracking).
Leads the team in orchestrating across Microsoft account teams, specialists, partners, and customer teams to deliver on-strategy Data & AI outcomes and increase customer and partner satisfaction.
Oversees the team in anticipating and managing business and technical risks for data and AI workloads — including data quality, data governance, model performance, cost, and Responsible AI considerations — applying governance principles to identify, communicate, and minimize risk.
Leads the team in delivering solutions in line with company methodologies (e.g., value-based deliverables [VBDs], architecture design sessions, technical validation, training), ensuring proven patterns are followed so customers are operationally ready to run data and AI workloads in production.
Coaches the team on guiding customers toward well-architected (secure, resilient, governed, AI-ready), cost- and performance-optimized data platforms and AI solutions that increase retention and expansion opportunities.
Drives the team to proactively identify cross-solution opportunities for Data & AI consumption, usage, and Unified expansion (including Enhanced Solutions) — such as data estate modernization, analytics migration to Microsoft Fabric, generative AI and agentic applications, and Copilot extensibility — based on clear business value to the customer.
Guides the team on articulating the value of Unified and partnering with account teams to build consumption plans aligned with the right Data & AI services. Leads feedback to the Unified Delivery team on Data & AI VBDs to refine and further develop content.
Leverages change management proven practices (or engages the change management team) to help customers drive long-term organizational adoption of data and AI solutions, including data literacy and AI adoption.
Drives the team on anticipating, identifying, escalating, and mitigating blockers — such as data readiness, platform limits, capacity and quota, security reviews, and skills gaps — to accelerate deployment, value realization, and consumption.
Leads the team to capture opportunities in appropriate systems and tools, working collaboratively across the organization in alignment with Microsoft's Customer Engagement Model.
Customer Centricity
Coaches the team to focus on customer and partner experience through efficient delivery and a seamless, connected customer experience; drives realization of customer conditions of success.
Leads the team in anticipating and resolving customer dissatisfaction through customer confidence calls, and in executing strategies to improve experience, value realization, and speed of transformation.
Supports the team in translating customer business problems into Data & AI solutions aligned with Microsoft's platform strategy — explaining how they meet business outcomes and return on investment (ROI) goals through proofs of concept, minimum viable products (MVPs), and rapid prototypes, relative to competitive offerings.
Coaches the team on building trusted relationships with technical decision makers (TDMs) up to the C-suite — including Chief Data Officers (CDOs), Chief Data & Analytics Officers, Chief AI Officers, CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs — and bridging understanding between TDMs and business decision makers (BDMs).
Elevates engagements with CXO stakeholders on data governance, data privacy, security, compliance, and Responsible AI requirements, engaging additional subject matter experts where deeper expertise is required.
Leads the team in acting as the voice of the customer, sharing feedback, insights, success stories, and technical input with Engineering, Product, and internal communities. Coaches the team on identifying patterns across customers to develop actionable insights and on presenting business cases that influence product roadmaps and bug-fix prioritization.
Partner Specialization
Actively orchestrates initiatives, leveraging an expansive knowledge of the Data & AI partner ecosystem to select and champion the most qualified partners for complex customer projects.
Collaborates with Global Partner Solutions (GPS) stakeholders and Partner Technology Specialist (PTS) leadership to translate Data & AI opportunities into action, fostering technical and solution coherence across Microsoft partner and sales ecosystems.
Concentrates on identifying and prioritizing opportunities that align with the organization's strategic revenue and consumption goals, directing partner and sales support through proofs of concept and technical pre-sales guidance.
People Management
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.
Technical Leadership
Leads the team in identifying gaps through delivery and connecting patterns across business and technology areas to drive improvements to products, intellectual property (IP), and practices that enable Data & AI solutions to scale across customers.
Coaches the team on contributing to Microsoft's structured frameworks and methodologies (e.g., Cloud Adoption Framework for data and AI, Well-Architected Framework, Responsible AI Standard).
Leads the team in contributing to and building reusable IP — reference architectures, accelerators, and solution patterns — especially where no IP exists yet (e.g., generative AI, AI agents, Copilot extensibility, RAG, and real-time intelligence scenarios).
Enables the team to lead and assemble virtual teams (v-teams) around Data & AI technologies and customer challenges, sharing insights with technical communities across the field using knowledge of Microsoft architectures and the competitive landscape (e.g., Snowflake, AWS, Google Cloud).
Drives recognition for Microsoft Data & AI solutions by leading and encouraging the team's participation in internal and external events (e.g., Ignite, Build, Fabric Community Conference, Tech Connect, meetups, webcasts, blogs, hackathons).
Uses market insights and demand signals to help leadership prioritize up-skilling and accreditations. Drives the team to role-model technical readiness — depth in Data & AI (data engineering, analytics, data science, MLOps/LLMOps, generative and agentic AI) and breadth across CSU priorities such as security, resilience, and AI.
Ensures team members dedicate time to continuous learning and certification, monitoring progress and providing guidance where appropriate.
Qualifications
Required/Minimum Qualifications
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Data Science, Business, or related field AND 8+ years of experience in data platforms, analytics, AI/machine learning, cloud technologies, technology consulting, software development, solution architecture, and/or practice development; OR equivalent experience.
3+ years of people management experience, including managing technical architects, consultants, or technical specialist teams.
Additional or Preferred Qualifications
6+ years of experience in a customer-facing technical role, with hands-on experience designing and delivering data and AI solutions.
6+ years of experience leading technical projects, teams, or functions.
Strong working knowledge of modern data and AI architectures (e.g., lakehouse, data mesh, real-time analytics, MLOps, retrieval-augmented generation, AI agents) and Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft Fabric, Azure Databricks, Azure SQL, Cosmos DB, Power BI, Azure Machine Learning, Microsoft Foundry, and Azure OpenAI.
Understanding of data governance, security, and Responsible AI principles and tooling (e.g., Microsoft Purview).
Technical certifications in data and AI (e.g., Azure AI Engineer Associate, Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate, Fabric Data Engineer Associate, Azure Data Scientist Associate, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, or equivalent).
5+ years of people management experience, including managing technical architects or consulting practice managers.
This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. 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 with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.