Cloud Solution Architect - Cybersecurity / XDR

With over 17,000 employees worldwide, the mission of the Customer Experience & Success (CE&S) 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 CE&S and help us build a future where customers achieve their business outcomes faster with technology that does more.

We are looking for a Cloud Solution Architect (CSA), specializing in Security who is passionate about driving our customers’ security & AI transformation on Microsoft platform. This is a customer-facing technical delivery role, owning the technical relationship between the customer and Microsoft, helping customers to leverage their Microsoft investments through architecture, implementation, and operational health engagements.

The ideal candidate will have experience in customer-facing roles and success in leading in-depth technical security architecture discussions with senior customer executives, Enterprise Security Architects, Enterprise Architects and IT Management to secure our customer's technology estate and drive Security as an enabler for Microsoft 365 Security and Azure workloads (XDR and SIEM) 

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

• Customer Centricity​
• Identifies and evaluates security trends, gathers customer insights (e.g., feedback around technical preferences, environments, business needs, competitive landscape), and maps architecture and digital transformation solutions to customer’s business outcomes.
• Acts as the voice of the customer by driving new feedback, insights, and resources to add and prioritize; connecting with Global Security teams at Microsoft, Engineering and Product teams to remove blockers and influence the solution roadmap.
• Develops and expands existing impactful relationships with CISOs, security practitioners, C-level technical decision makers (TDMs), and business stakeholders.
• Uncovers, aggregates, and synthesizes data about customer’s security posture and roadmap, complex technical requirements and issues and various technical strategies being proposed.
• Actively listens, creates, and sustains constructive tension and trust with customers by respectfully challenging their decisions and/or areas where they might do more and encouraging them to consider alternative architectures/solutions and approaches.
• Addresses security requirements/issues/strategies with win-win technical architecture(s) and demonstrates and proves the capability and value of those solutions through design collaboration sessions with the customer.
• Supports customer skilling by leading discussions on technical delivery with other internal and external stakeholders as a technical thought leader to influence customer readiness.
• Guides other team members to focus on customer experience through efficient delivery and ensuring a seamless and connected customer experience and shares best practices with the wider internal team. 

• Business Impact​
• Drives their team in operating and optimizing complex and high-impact situations for strategic customers in collaboration with internal stakeholders (e.g., STU, CSAM, other Account Team members, Product Groups).
• Anticipates and manages business and security risks, and adapts methodology (e.g. Zero Trust, Security Adoption Framework, SFI) and applies governance to identify, communicate, and minimize business and security risks.
• Leverages standard tools to ensure accurate opportunity and milestone execution and pipeline hygiene.
• Owns complex customers relationships to anticipate, identify, propose resolution, and lead removal of technical blockers through regular security reviews and check-ins to accelerate consumption and usage.
• Proactively uses deep knowledge of the security portfolio, services, and value propositions of Microsoft and its competitors in customer conversations and to propose and coach others to develop new solutions to scale across multiple customers while demonstrating the business case and presenting alternative scenarios.
• Creates opportunities to expand or accelerate security usage and consumption (including through security related managed intellectual property [VBD, DE, EDE]) and leads these customer conversations.
• Leads the adoption of Microsoft’s Security offerings based on analysis/differentiation of Microsoft and competitor products to influence the industry-wide direction for specific architecture(s).
• Technical Leadership​
• Leverages market insights to assist leadership in defining global security vision by identifying relevant areas in which to drive up-skilling. Role models effective security skilling and influences team to drive their own technical readiness. Drives and engages others to adapt to changes aligned with SA priorities. Acts as a mentor to less experienced colleagues by educating them on security and professional developmental concepts and sharing best practices.
• Leads virtual teams around technologies and customer challenges by sharing ideas, insights, and strategic, technical input with security teams, internal communities across the field, and the larger virtual team across Microsoft using knowledge of Microsoft architectures and their context in the competitive landscape.
• Organizes or presents at internal/industry security events (e.g., Ready, Build, Ignite, RSA, etc.). Demonstrates deep industry knowledge and drives recognition for Microsoft solutions through presentations and engagements with external audiences. Participates in external security community events (e.g., conferences, seminars, technical meetups, Webcasts, blogs, hackathons) and shares learnings across internal teams.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Cybersecurity,
  • OR related field
• 7+ years experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, cybersecurity, information technology (IT) consulting/support, systems administration, network operations, software development/support, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 6+ years experience working in a customer-facing role 
• 6+ years experience leading technical projects.

Technical

• The technical aptitude and experience to learn new cloud security technologies and understand relevant cloud security market trends.
• Competitive Landscape: Knowledge of cloud security platforms and competitors. Breadth of technical security experience and knowledge, with depth / Subject Matter Expertise in two or more of the following security solutions:
  
  
  • Extended Detection and Response (XDR) - Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Endpoint, Identity and Office 365 – hands on experience required. 
  • Security Operations: SIEM and SOAR (Microsoft Sentinel)
  • Identity and Access Management (Microsoft Entra)
  • Cloud Infrastructure and SecurityCertification in one or more of the following technologies preferred: Microsoft Cybersecurity Architect Expert, Microsoft 365 Security Administrator, Microsoft Security Operations Analyst Associate, Azure Security Engineer, CCSP, CEH, OSCP, GSEC

Additional or Preferred Qualifications:

Candidates should have broad experience in security and expertise around related technologies and concepts such as Zero Trust, threat management, SOC monitoring (SIEM / SOAR), and Extended Detection & Response (XDR) + SIEM, Data Security and Identity. Candidates should have knowledge as a security engineer or consultant to understand industry trends and competitive landscape, advise customers on ways to strengthen their security posture or health, and land customer value through security.

• Relationship Building - Proven track record of building deep technical relationships with senior security teams and executives in large or highly complex accounts. Experience in managing various stakeholder relationships to get consensus on security solutions/projects.
• Problem Solving - Ability to solve customer security problems through cloud technologies
• Collaboration and Communication - Acknowledged for driving decisions collaboratively, resolving conflicts and ensuring follow through with exceptional verbal and written communication skills.
• Presentation skills with a high degree of comfort with both large and small audiences (Senior Executives, Security teams, Security Operations Center (SOC) leadership, Security admins, and Cloud Security teams).
• Customer Focus - Customer obsessed leader with an "if I don't know how to get it done, I'll find someone who does" approach to solving customer challenges
• Value Realization - Ability to understand customer business objectives and outcomes and ability to quickly leverage tech solutions to accomplish those outcomes
• Trusted Technical Advisor - Ability to build strong relationships with senior security stakeholders and quickly build credibility and be viewed as a trusted advisor
• Architecture - Ability to assess customer's multi-cloud ecosystem of systems & processes and make strategic recommendations that align with modern security practices and principles.

Language: Arabic speakers are preferred.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

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