Overview

The Senior Cloud Solution Architect (CSA) with POD Lead responsibilities is accountable for driving delivery excellence, technical quality, and operational discipline within a designated group of vendor CSAs (the POD).

This position demands a strong technical foundation, advanced project management expertise, and proven leadership skills to ensure that every engagement delivered through the Success Program meets Microsoft’s highest standards for quality, consistency, and customer satisfaction.

As both a technical expert and operational leader, the POD Lead oversees end-to-end delivery performance, enforces compliance with standards, and acts as a regional focal point for escalations and strategic alignment. Through hands-on engagement delivery, quality oversight, and mentoring, the POD Lead elevates both customer outcomes and team capability.

It will require an investigative approach, a challenger mindset, and deep experience working with our customers in their Secured cloud environments such as GCC/H, Sovereign Cloud and more. You will work to build relationships at the local level, investigate creative approaches to staffing and delivery directly to your customers in your area of expertise (Azure Resiliency, Security, and/or AI).

Customer Health Success Programs aim to strengthen security & resiliency, drive cloud success, and spark AI innovation ensuring that Microsoft Unified customers quickly realize value from their investment in our cloud.

With over 17,000 employees worldwide, the mission of the Global Delivery & Workforce Planning (GDWP) organization is to empower customers to accelerate business value through differentiated customer experiences that leverage Microsoft’s products and services ignited by our people and culture. Come join GDWP and help us build a future where customers achieve their business outcomes faster with technology that does more.

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.

Responsibilities

Technical Delivery & Quality
• Partner with Secured CSU leaders, delivery partners, and global/national CSA teams enabling Success Program Deliveries across our Secured customer base in your assigned markets.
• Serve as a technical authority within the POD, providing architectural guidance, best practice validation, and delivery assurance across multiple Microsoft solution areas (Azure, Security, AI, or Modern Work).
• Conduct random delivery audits, reviewing customer deliverables for accuracy, alignment to frameworks, and technical depth.
• Lead key customer engagements to set delivery standards, ensuring technical excellence and knowledge transfer.
• Partner with SMEs and IP Leads to pilot new content and improve delivery methodologies based on field insights.
Program & Project Management
• Maintain the Rhythm of Business (ROB) cadence by facilitating bi-weekly POD syncs, monthly dashboards, and quarterly business reviews to ensure visibility, accountability, and performance tracking.
• Monitor vendor CSA utilization, engagement compliance, and CSAT performance, applying short-term corrective actions and operational optimizations based on data insights. Drive delivery lifecycle governance, ensuring timely kickoffs, milestone tracking, deliverables submission, and closeouts fully aligned with Success Program SLAs and documentation standards.
• Oversee workload planning and capacity management in collaboration with Resource Coordinators (RCs) and Service Delivery Managers (SDMs) to balance priorities and ensure effective allocation.
• Track and report key performance indicators (KPIs)—including utilization, CSAT, audit coverage, compliance, and billable contribution—to assess delivery health and inform decision-making
Leadership & People Enablement
• Act as a territorial leader, representing the POD in regional forums, QBRs, and stakeholder reviews.
• Mentor and enable vendor CSAs, local OU CSAs, and national/global teams fostering a culture of accountability, growth, and continuous improvement.
• Partner with CSAMs, TZ Leads, and SDMs to ensure engagement readiness, operational compliance, and business alignment.
• Promote knowledge sharing and collaboration across PODs and solution areas, driving operational maturity.
• Proactively identify systemic issues or delivery risks and collaborate with leadership to implement corrective actions.
Innovation & IP Contribution
• Provide structured feedback loops to IP Leads and central teams to improve delivery IP and automation opportunities.
• Participate in pilot programs and testing of new Success Program engagements or frameworks.
• Champion innovation by bringing field learnings, best practices, and process improvement ideas back into the global community.

Addtional Skills:

Strong project management background, including governance, reporting, and delivery lifecycle management.
Demonstrated experience in leading distributed teams and coordinating cross-functional delivery with partners and vendors.
Solid understanding of ITIL, DevOps, and operational frameworks (change management, incident response, SLAs, KPIs).
Ability to communicate effectively with executive, technical, and operational stakeholders.

East Coast preferred

Qualifications

Required/minimum qualifications

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, Liberal Arts, or related field AND 4+ years experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, information technology (IT) consulting/support, systems administration, network operations, software development/support, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting OR equivalent experience.

Other Requirements

Security Clearance Requirements: Candidates must be able to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: - The successful candidate must have an active U.S. Government Top Secret Security Clearance. Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. Failure to maintain or obtain the appropriate clearance and/or customer screening requirements may result in employment action up to and including termination. -

Clearance Verification: This position requires successful verification of the stated security clearance to meet federal government customer requirements. You will be asked to provide clearance verification information prior to an offer of employment.

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, or other approved documents, or verified US government clearance.

Cloud Solution Architecture IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $106,400 - $203,600 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 $137,600 - $222,600 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.

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.

Senior Cloud Solution Architect - CTJ - Top Secret