Account Technology Strategist

Overview

As a Account Technology Strategist (ATS) within Microsoft's Defense Industrial Base (DIB) business, you will serve as the trusted technology advisor to some of Microsoft's most strategic Aerospace & Defense, Government Contractor, and Professional Services customers. You will partner with senior business and technology leaders to align their mission, business, and digital transformation objectives with Microsoft's AI, Copilot, Security, Data, and Cloud platforms.

As a core member of the Account Team Unit (ATU), you will orchestrate Microsoft resources, partners, and customer stakeholders to create and execute long-term technology strategies that drive mission outcomes, business growth, operational resiliency, and competitive advantage. You will help customers modernize legacy environments, secure critical infrastructure, accelerate AI adoption, and transform how they deliver services in highly regulated and complex environments.

This role combines executive engagement, technology leadership, industry expertise, and strategic business planning. The successful candidate will possess a deep understanding of the Defense Industrial Base ecosystem, including the technology, security, compliance, and operational challenges faced by government contractors and mission-critical organizations.

Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. We foster a culture of growth mindset, innovation, inclusion, and accountability, enabling our employees and customers to achieve meaningful impact.

Responsibilities

Customer and Industry Insights

• Applies expertise (deep expertise across few accounts or broad expertise across many accounts) and thought leadership to identify and inform the development of the right Industry Sales Kits and industry partners within the customer's vertical industry. Articulates and understands specific industry-related market trends, as well as customer threats, opportunities, and barriers to growth as they relate to the customer's broader industry. Leverages industry trends from other industries to gather insights and develop an informed perspective on similar issues that may occur within their industry/industries. Applies industry knowledge to support customers in solving issues.
• Synthesizes and combines various business and industry insights from their team, global best practices, proof points from experience/case studies with countries and/or regions, and deep industry expertise (e.g., level 200) related to customers and their competitors to conduct forecasting and develop recommendations for managing accounts and subsidiary planning. Ensures that all levels of the organization challenge customers to consider alternatives and adapt strategies, plans, business models, and solutions to insights. Orchestrates cross-regional teams to gather information, collaborate on performance markers, and identify potential risks in customer accounts. Oversees technical teams for driving opportunities with others, as necessary. Brings in business and industry insights to address the broader business challenges for the customer and deliver solutions.

Differentiated Value Proposition

• Acts as the customer's Technology Mentor in established relationships with a line-of-business leader or senior executive within a large-scale or high-impact customer organization senior leaders, including technical decision makers (TDMs) and/or Business Unit leaders at the C-level (e.g., HR, Risk, Finance leadership). Develops extended relationships beyond core customers, advises on solutions, and aligns Microsoft capabilities with customer needs. Drives market share (e.g., cloud, collaboration, AI). Leads customer business transformations through digital technologies for assigned accounts to drive business outcomes and create business value for customers by understanding customer industry and position to provide guidance and to challenge customer thinking with innovative ideas that showcase the need for change and new strategic direction, and proactively involves corporate and cross-industry resources to drive customer transformation. Ensures line-of-business wins are captured (e.g., customer write-ups) as reference for scale, and represents the face of the business during public relations events for significant business wins.
• Partners with a line-of-business leader or senior executive within a large-scale or high-impact customer organization to articulate how complex Microsoft technology/services will meet future business needs better than the competition and will enable the achievement of long-term growth and success. Provides an outside-in view around existing and emerging compete or other solutions that are also a requirement for the customer.

Education and Thought Leadership

• Leads customer technology engagement by engaging and influencing technical resources of customer, partner, and Microsoft towards customer’s business transformation. Delivers regular (e.g., quarterly, monthly) industry/technology briefings to customer technology senior decision-makers technical teams.
• Uses existing and new readiness resources and demonstrates expertise in creating enablement plans for large and high-stakes customers, and all-up Microsoft business. Drives innovations to help customers meet capacity and capability goals, maximize reach, and impact and drive long-term engagement and thought leadership on the Microsoft platform, and influences large customers to see and adopt the strategic value. Drives customer skilling initiatives and execution.

Mapping and Account Planning

• Establishes best practices and standards around account planning for budgeting, quota attainment, consumption goals, and customer consumption gaps to inform quarterly and fiscal objectives. Coordinates highly complex extended account teams (e.g., spanning complex technologies, geographies, functions) and drives forecasting and tracking of the business. Owns the technical portion of the account plan and leads the customer plan delivery for large, critical, and/or strategic accounts. Captures all Account Planning input in MSX D365 Account Plan.
• Helps customer technical specialists build the message to sell Microsoft offerings to other parts of their business or end users. Creates stakeholder maps for accounts, determines, and orchestrates a coverage plan, and builds out an execution framework across multiple Rooms of the House of the customer.
• Orchestrates internal teams and local partners (inclusive of global systems integrators and consultancy partners) to ensure sufficient technical resources for demand generation, when appropriate.

Technology Sales: Demand Generation and Orchestration

• Leads the customer journey into the era of AI and Industrial Metaverse by creating a targeted approach tailored to their current business requirements and positions Microsoft as a leader for the future, both for accelerating productivity as well as helping the customer create new capabilities to support their business. Leverages expertise of current technology landscape and understanding of AI and Industrial Metaverse capabilities to plot the foundational elements on the technology roadmap that need to be in place to realize value for the customer. Builds a mid-term strategy for AI and metaverse projects as well as an immediate opportunity pipeline and orchestrates execution through the appropriate technical teams from the Specialist Team Unit (STU) and with appropriate Partners
• Creates, develops, and drives opportunities based on industry best practices, presents opportunities to the customer, and creates demand. Develops a plan, within a broader strategy, to create and qualify a set number of opportunities for product sales, solutions sales, or consumption. Leverages partners and multiple channels (e.g., social media) to create demand. Orchestrates efforts to drive MCEM lifecycle and stage progression. Leverages experience and strategic foresight to lead technical teams by driving opportunities with Specialist Team Unit (STU), Customer Success Unit (CSU), and others, as necessary. Leads efforts to reach out to key stakeholders to give customer-driven pitches and drives the appropriate customer reach together with the account executive to generate new demand. Uses advanced technical knowledge of products to determine feasibility of technical customer requirements requests and works with core engineering teams to prepare solutions.
• Leads Account Strategy Envisioning (ASE, formerly IDTA) with the extended account team, customer, and partner to deliver the outcomes for the customer through joint envisioning, as a vehicle for Industry Sales Kits and Solution Plays. Creates new Stage 1 opportunities, both billed and consumed, with technical decision maker (TDM) customer stakeholders, managing consumption pipeline with extended team to maintain velocity, and unblocking issues. Coaches peers (often as a mentor across a region or country) on how to create and maintain an opportunity initiation and how to map Microsoft priorities to opportunities. Defines the blueprint for opportunity initiation, and sets and shares standards and best practices for others to follow.

Technology Strategy Formulation

• Creates mid- and long-term (e.g., 12 or more months) multi-horizon technology and business roadmaps for highly prominent, challenging, and/or strategic accounts based on a deep understanding of business and technology priorities and industry landscape. Challenges and validates the strategy and plan with customer stakeholders and drives envisioning and articulates business and program changes in the roadmaps around new and groundbreaking capabilities. Leads the translation of the customer's business objectives in conjunction with Industry Sales Kits and Solution Plays (including consumption-heavy workloads and cloud services) to develop an effective Industry Technology Architecture to plans for and drives consumption and adoption of Microsoft cloud and a higher share of customer potential and propensity (CPP).
• Leads analysis of overall customer needs, outcomes, and blockers. Determines key stakeholders for driving execution on the largest and/or most complex accounts. Partners with global executives to lead overall strategy development (e.g., blocker identification, partner strategy) to identify and address gaps and drive end-to-end solutions. Leads the adoption of technologies by plotting the long-term vision of the customer's business strategy and driving action to bring to fruition.
• Leads and ensures execution of technology strategy and digital transformation by anticipating and/or leading the resolution of technical blockers that arise during strategy planning and implementation, and driving technology adoption.

Trusted Advisor

• Acts as the voice of the customer, industry, and internal advocate by providing insights, feedback, and challenges from the customer to internal teams (e.g., product groups, engineers) across all levels of the organization. Drives action to ensure that internal teams understand and respond to insights. Articulates the business opportunity for Microsoft based on product gaps.
• Provides Account thought leadership inclusive of information technology (IT), business strategy knowledge, and technology landscape, and shares best practices internally while providing coaching to subsidiary resources. Leverages account thought leadership in partnership with account executives to set strategy, own accountability for outcomes, and lead extended teams. Provides technical guidance to internal teams to position technology while using customer landscape knowledge. Creates connections and feedback loops with Product and Engineering teams.
• Creates security thought leadership with the customer's executives (e.g., technical decision maker [TDM]/business decision maker [BDM]) using the Microsoft Security and Zero Trust narratives and engages TDM and BDM stakeholders to position security as a business enabler and instill a security mindset in all aspects of the customer's technology landscape. Uses their understanding of the customers' technology and security needs to establish Microsoft’s security credentials and to build opportunities to improve the customer's security posture and orchestrates execution through security specialists.
• Leverages a broad knowledge of Microsoft's product landscape, solutions, and strategy to address customer's needs. Proactively coordinates with internal and external network of industry experts (e.g., Regional Experts, industry-specific partners) to build strong knowledge of the industry and the competitive landscape. Drives and leverages leaders from the partner ecosystem to bridge process gaps. Leverages deep understanding of their customer to share knowledge with extended team and leverages advanced knowledge of competitors to promote customer business perspectives. Partners with others (e.g., enterprise-channel managers) to provide sponsorship and increase impact.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business or related field AND 6+ years technical consulting, technical consultative selling, business consulting, practice building, or related technical/sales experience
  • OR equivalent experience.

Other Requirements

Microsoft Cloud Background Check

• This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Citizenship & Citizenship Verification

• This position requires verification of U.S citizenship due to citizenship-based legal restrictions. Specifically, this position supports United States federal, state, and/or local United States government agency customers and is subject to certain citizenship-based restrictions where required or permitted by applicable law. To meet this legal requirement, citizenship will be verified via a valid passport.

Citizenship & Citizenship Verification

• This role will require access to information that is controlled for export under U.S. export control regulations, potentially under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations or the Export Administration Regulations.  As a condition of employment, the successful candidate will be required to provide proof of citizenship, for assessment of eligibility to access the export-controlled information.  To meet this legal requirement, citizenship will be verified via a valid passport

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business or related field AND 12+ years technical consulting, technical consultative selling, business consulting, practice building, or related technical/sales experience

• OR equivalent experience.

• 6+ years experience in relevant customer industry.
• 6+ years experience in digital transformation, or using technology to drive customer business outcomes.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a United States Government Security Clearance.

Account Technology IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $130,900 - $251,900 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $165,600 - $272,300 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

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.