Solutions Engineer - Agents & Automation

About Us

Since 1989, SHI International Corp. has helped organizations change the world through technology. We’ve grown every year since, and today we’re proud to be a $16 billion global provider of IT solutions and services.

Over 17,000 organizations worldwide rely on SHI’s concierge approach to help them solve what’s next. But the heartbeat of SHI is our employees – all 7,000 of them. If you join our team, you’ll enjoy:

• Our commitment to diversity, as the largest minority- and woman-owned enterprise in the U.S.

• Continuous professional growth and leadership opportunities.

• Health, wellness, and financial benefits to offer peace of mind to you and your family.

• World-class facilities and the technology you need to thrive – in our offices or yours. 

Job Summary

The Solutions Engineer – Agents & Automation is responsible for building and delivering enterprise agent solutions using Microsoft Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry, and Microsoft 365 Copilot Agent Builder. This role also supports agent governance and lifecycle management through Agent 365.

This hands-on role focuses on implementing declarative and prompt-based agents, custom-engine agents, and enterprise integrations while helping customers establish governed, scalable environments for agent development and lifecycle management. Responsibilities include configuring Power Platform environment strategies, implementing zoned governance, developing agents across Microsoft Copilot Studio and Microsoft Foundry, and supporting secure agent operations across Power Platform and Azure.

The role also supports Agent 365 onboarding activities, including configuring conditional access policies, enabling agent lifecycle workflows, and implementing key governance and security capabilities across the Microsoft 365 admin center, Microsoft Entra Agent ID, Microsoft Purview, and Microsoft Defender.

The Solutions Engineer translates designs into production-ready solutions, drives consistent and secure delivery, and accelerates reuse through proven patterns. The role sits at the intersection of AI innovation, human experience, and responsible AI enablement, helping organizations establish scalable, governed agent capabilities while contributing to the continued evolution of SHI’s Microsoft Services practice.

Role Description

Agent Architecture and Development

• Act as the technical subject matter expert (SME) for workforce agent solution development across Copilot Studio and Microsoft Foundry, including first-party agents, declarative agents, and custom-engine agent development.
• Build and deploy custom-engine agents in Microsoft Foundry, including model selection, orchestration, grounding, evaluation, tool and function integration, and connectivity with Copilot Studio and enterprise systems.
• Demonstrate familiarity with the Microsoft IQ stack, including Work IQ, Foundry IQ, and Fabric IQ, and its role in enabling intelligent agent experiences through knowledge, grounding, orchestration, evaluation, and integration patterns across Microsoft agent platforms.
• Guide SHI customers through hands-on agent solution delivery, custom DLP policies, environment and AI readiness assessments, use case identification, and governance of enterprise agent platforms.
• Lead agent governance implementation, including environment readiness, Power Platform environment strategy, zoned governance, prerequisite validation, platform enablement, and deployment planning across Power Platform, Azure, and related services, using Power Platform Pipelines, Azure DevOps, and GitHub Actions where appropriate.
• Design and implement agent security and compliance controls as part of Agent 365 onboarding, using Microsoft Purview for labels, DLP, and eDiscovery; Microsoft Defender for threat visibility; and Microsoft Entra Agent ID for identity, conditional access, and least-privilege access.
• Establish enterprise agent governance through environment strategy (DEV/UAT/PROD), managed environments, ALM/pipelines, connector governance, solution packaging, auditing, and lifecycle management for Copilot Studio agents and agent flows.
• Own the end-to-end implementation of agent solutions by translating business requirements into workflows, automations, integrations, and extensibility patterns across Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry, Azure AI Services, and Power Platform.
• Implement Power Platform governance and ALM capabilities, including managed environments, environment groups, DLP policies, pipeline configuration, approval workflows, Copilot Studio Kit setup, and administrator enablement.
• Define fit-for-purpose agent architectures that align platform capabilities, custom agent logic, integrations, orchestration patterns, and automation workflows with customer requirements.
• Implement secure and governed agent environments, including identity, data access, compliance, monitoring, and lifecycle management using Microsoft security and governance services.
• Guide teams on agent design, governance, evaluation, observability, audit readiness, and operational best practices, including analytics, feedback loops, and continuous improvement.
• Develop and maintain reusable technical assets, including reference architectures, design patterns, solution templates, and implementation guides for Copilot and agent services.
• Help customers evaluate and adopt emerging Microsoft Frontier agent capabilities, including prebuilt Microsoft agents, Microsoft Foundry features, Copilot Studio capabilities, and new Agent 365 platform services.
• Apply FinOps practices for agents and AI workloads, including Copilot Credit planning, cost-benefit analysis, usage forecasting, model selection, consumption monitoring, and cost optimization across Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry, and related Microsoft AI services.
• Work effectively in Visual Studio Code and use GitHub Copilot and other coding assistants to build, extend, and troubleshoot solutions for Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry-hosted agents, and the Agent 365 SDK.
• Demonstrate familiarity with agent development frameworks such as Microsoft Agent Framework to support extensible, code-first agent development patterns across Microsoft agent platforms.
• Perform agent evaluations in Microsoft Foundry and Copilot Studio, including testing agent responses, validating grounding quality, measuring effectiveness, and using evaluation results to improve agent behavior, reliability, and user experience.
• Design agent grounding and retrieval architectures using enterprise data sources, connectors, knowledge sources, Azure AI Search, Microsoft Graph, MCP Servers, Dataverse, and secure data access patterns.
• Implement responsible AI and safety controls for agent solutions, including safety testing, evaluation criteria, risk review, content moderation considerations, human oversight patterns, and continuous improvement.

Behaviors and Competencies

• Customer Communication: Clearly explain complex Microsoft AI, Copilot, agent, governance, and automation concepts to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Presentation and Facilitation: Design and deliver engaging presentations, workshops, and technical discussions tailored to the audience, business need, and delivery context.
• Technical Judgment: Evaluate requirements, constraints, risks, and platform capabilities to recommend practical, scalable, and supportable agent solutions.
• Problem Solving: Proactively identify issues, dependencies, and delivery risks and recommend clear options and corrective actions.
• Detail Orientation: Manage complex implementation tasks with attention to configuration accuracy, governance requirements, documentation quality, and delivery consistency.
• Organization and Follow-Through: Coordinate multiple workstreams, track decisions and action items, and ensure commitments are completed on time.
• Relationship Building: Build trust with customers, partners, Microsoft stakeholders, and internal delivery teams through reliable communication and collaborative execution.
• Documentation and Reuse: Create clear documentation, implementation guides, design patterns, and reusable assets that improve delivery quality and operational efficiency.
• Results Orientation: Drive work toward measurable outcomes while balancing customer value, technical quality, governance, and long-term supportability.

Skill Level Requirements

We are looking for candidates who demonstrate strength across the following areas. Deep expertise in every tool is not required, but experience across these capabilities is important for success. Candidates should not self-select out if they do not meet all of these requirements.

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical, business, or related field, or equivalent experience.

• Four or more years of experience delivering solutions on Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Azure, or related Microsoft cloud technologies, including hands-on experience with AI or agent-based solutions.

• Practical experience developing production agents in Microsoft Copilot Studio and Microsoft Foundry, including first-party agent capabilities and custom-engine agents.

• Experience designing or implementing declarative and embedded agent experiences across Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, and Power Platform, including Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Fx, and configuration-based development patterns such as YAML.

• Strong understanding of agent architecture, governance, security, and lifecycle management, including identity, compliance, monitoring, and operational controls across Power Platform Admin Center, Microsoft 365 admin center, Agent 365 control plane, Foundry control plane, and related services.

• Proven ability to act as a technical advisor and SME, guiding solution design and implementation decisions across project teams.

• Working knowledge of applied AI concepts, including prompt design, evaluation, monitoring, and responsible AI practices.

• Familiarity with design-led or human-centered approaches as they apply to technical solution design and workflow modeling.

• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills, with the ability to translate business needs into scalable technical solutions.

• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
  

Other Requirements

• Ability to travel to SHI, Partner, and Customer events.

• Ability to work independently while collaborating effectively with sales, delivery, engineering, and leadership stakeholders.

• Commitment to continuous learning and upskilling across Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Foundry, Agent 365, Copilot Studio, GitHub Copilot, AI workloads, governance, and change and adoption best practices.

• Strong ethical standards with disciplined adherence to data privacy, governance, compliance, and security policies.
  

Certification

Relevant certifications may include:

• Microsoft 365 Copilot and Agent Administration Fundamentals (AB-900)
• Power Platform Solutions Architect (PL-600)
• Microsoft Agentic AI Business Solutions Architect (AB-100)
• Microsoft Azure AI Engineer Associate (AI-103)
• Equivalent experience may be considered.

The estimated annual pay range for this position is $150,000 - $200,000 which includes a base salary and bonus. The compensation for this position is dependent on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and market location and, therefore, will vary from individual to individual. Benefits may include, but are not limited to, medical, vision, dental, 401K, and flexible spending.   

Equal Employment Opportunity – M/F/Disability/Protected Veteran Status