Solution Architect - Data & AI

Overview

Microsoft Industry Solutions Delivery brings together strategic sellers, industry and security experts, engineers, data scientists, architects, consultants, and delivery specialists to help Microsoft’s most strategic customers solve complex business challenges. Together with our partners, we deliver industry-specific solutions that accelerate customers’ digital and AI transformation using Microsoft Cloud and AI.

As a Solution Architect – Data & AI, you will shape and architect enterprise Data, Generative AI, and Agentic AI solutions that deliver measurable customer outcomes and accelerate cloud adoption. You will combine business understanding, deep technical expertise, customer-facing solution leadership, and architecture governance to translate complex requirements into secure, scalable, resilient, and production-ready solutions.

You will engage with business and technology leaders to understand their priorities, define the solution vision and value proposition, and create architecture strategies and transformation roadmaps. You will lead solution shaping from early customer conversations and presales through design, delivery governance, production deployment, adoption, and value realization.

As an experienced individual contributor, you will provide architectural leadership across multidisciplinary teams, evaluate technology choices and trade-offs, manage technical risks, and ensure quality throughout the solution lifecycle. You will champion AI-first architecture practices, Responsible AI, reusable intellectual property, and modern Data & AI platforms to help customers move from experimentation to enterprise-scale adoption.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. We come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. 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

• Lead solution envisioning and shaping: Engage with customer executives, business sponsors, enterprise architects, security teams, and engineering leaders to understand priorities, identify opportunities, and define outcome-based Data & AI solutions.
• Define the solution architecture: Create and document the architecture vision, value proposition, target architecture, transition roadmap, architecture decisions, requirements, constraints, assumptions, dependencies, and risks.
• Architect modern Data & AI platforms: Design enterprise data platforms, lakehouse architectures, data engineering, analytics, real-time data, governance, search, machine learning, and AI solutions using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Fabric, Databricks, and related technologies.
• Architect Generative and Agentic AI solutions: Define architectures for Generative AI applications, RAG, enterprise knowledge, AI agents, multi-agent systems, reusable skills, tool integration, orchestration, memory, evaluation, and human-in-the-loop controls.
• Shape complex opportunities: Lead technical discovery, solution modelling, architecture workshops, demonstrations, proofs of concept, estimation, and solution proposals in collaboration with sales, account, consulting, engineering, and partner teams.
• Connect architecture to business value: Translate technology choices into business outcomes, cloud adoption, consumption plans, operating efficiencies, risk reduction, and measurable value-realization objectives.
• Provide architecture governance: Establish architecture principles, standards, decision processes, and quality gates across design, build, testing, deployment, production, and optimization.
• Drive security and Responsible AI: Embed security, identity, privacy, data governance, regulatory compliance, Responsible AI, observability, resilience, and operational controls into the solution architecture.
• Guide production delivery: Provide architectural direction to consultants, engineers, data scientists, and partners while resolving complex design issues and managing technical dependencies and risks.
• Apply AI-first methods: Use copilots, agents, automation, and AI-assisted architecture techniques to accelerate discovery, design, documentation, risk assessment, estimation, and architecture validation.
• Scale architectural impact: Reuse and contribute reference architectures, delivery IP, solution patterns, accelerators, architecture decision records, and lessons learned across customer engagements.
• Provide technical thought leadership: Mentor architects and technical professionals, communicate architecture and business value to senior stakeholders, and contribute to the broader Data & AI technical community.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Information Technology, Business, or a related field AND 6+ years of relevant solution architecture, technical presales, Data & AI, cloud architecture, consulting, or technology delivery experience, OR equivalent experience.
• Experience shaping and architecting enterprise Data, Analytics, AI, Generative AI, or cloud transformation solutions.
• Experience leading customer-facing technical discovery, architecture workshops, solution design, and technical decision-making for complex enterprise opportunities.
• Good knowledge of modern Data & AI architectures, including data engineering, lakehouse, analytics, data governance, semantic and vector search, machine learning, RAG, Generative AI, and Agentic AI.
• Experience designing AI agents or agentic solutions incorporating grounding, tool/function calling, reusable skills, workflows, orchestration, memory, evaluation, and human oversight.
• Experience with modern cloud and Data & AI technologies, preferably Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Fabric, Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search, Azure Databricks, and/or Power BI.
• Experience translating business requirements into architecture strategies, roadmaps, solution designs, delivery approaches, estimates, risks, and measurable success criteria.
• Experience taking solutions from envisioning and proof of concept through secure, scalable production deployment and adoption.
• Understanding of security, identity, data governance, privacy, Responsible AI, observability, resilience, regulatory compliance, and cost optimization.
• Good executive communication, customer consulting, value storytelling, problem-solving, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Ability to independently lead complex solution architecture workstreams and influence decisions across business, sales, engineering, delivery, and partner teams.

Additional or Preferred Qualifications

• 12+ years of relevant solution architecture, technical presales, enterprise Data & AI, cloud transformation, consulting, or solution delivery experience.
• Demonstrated experience leading end-to-end solution shaping and technical presales, from opportunity discovery and business-value definition through proposal, proof of concept, delivery governance, and production adoption.
• Deep architecture expertise across Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Fabric, Databricks, data platforms, Generative AI, LLMs, RAG, agentic systems, and enterprise integration.
• Experience with enterprise-scale data modernization, lakehouse, analytics, AI platform, multi-cloud, or migration programs.
• Experience designing and governing multi-agent architectures, enterprise knowledge solutions, AI platforms, or intelligent process transformation.
• Ability to model solution options, articulate trade-offs, estimate cost and consumption, identify risks, and present recommendations to executive stakeholders.
• Experience defining reusable reference architectures, solution patterns, technical standards, architecture decision records, and delivery accelerators.
• Experience providing technical governance and quality assurance across multidisciplinary customer, Microsoft, and partner delivery teams.
• Relevant technical certifications aligned to the solution area, such as Azure Solutions Architect, Fabric Analytics Engineer, Azure AI Engineer, Data Engineer, Security, or equivalent certifications.
• Architecture or delivery methodology certifications such as TOGAF, Agile, Scrum, DevOps, PMP, or Change Management are advantageous.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor architects and engineers, lead technical communities, and contribute thought leadership across Data & AI.

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

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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.