Overview
About Microsoft
With more than 45,000 employees and partners worldwide, the Customer Experience and Success (CE&S) organisation helps customers accelerate business value through differentiated experiences powered by Microsoft products, services, and people. We drive alignment across the company to consistently exceed customer expectations across digital, in-product, and human interactions. CE&S delivers consulting, customer success, and support across Microsoft's portfolio.
Customer Health Success Programs strengthen security and resiliency, drive cloud adoption, and accelerate AI innovation so Microsoft Unified customers realise value from their cloud investments faster.
The Global Delivery & Workforce Planning (GDWP) organisation, with more than 17,000 employees worldwide, enables customers to achieve business outcomes faster through technology and high-quality delivery experiences. Join GDWP and help shape the future of customer success at Microsoft.
About The Role
The Senior Cloud Solution Architect (CSA) – POD Lead is accountable for delivery excellence, technical quality, and operational discipline across a designated group of vendor CSAs (the POD). This role combines technical leadership with operational oversight to ensure consistent, high-quality delivery outcomes.
At Microsoft, we work with a growth mindset, collaborate to achieve shared goals, and build inclusive environments where everyone can thrive. Our values of respect, integrity, and accountability guide how we work and deliver for customers.
Responsibilities
This role requires strong technical expertise, project management capability, and proven leadership to ensure Success Program engagements meet Microsoft's standards for quality, consistency, and customer satisfaction. The POD Lead provides end-to-end delivery oversight, enforces standards, manages escalations, and drives continuous improvement across teams and customer engagements. The role also requires an investigative, challenger mindset and experience delivering in secured cloud environments (e.g., GCC/H, Sovereign Cloud), building local delivery capability in Azure Resiliency, Security, and/or AI.
Technical Delivery & Quality
Partner with Secured CSU leaders, delivery partners, and global and regional CSA teams to enable Success Program delivery across secured customer environments.Serve as a technical authority within the POD, providing architectural guidance, best-practice validation, and delivery assurance across Azure, Security, AI, and Modern Work.Review customer deliverables to ensure accuracy, technical depth, and alignment to frameworks.Lead key customer engagements to establish delivery standards and enable knowledge transfer.Collaborate with SMEs and IP Leads to pilot new content and improve delivery methodologies.
Program & Project Management
Maintain operational cadence through POD syncs, dashboards, and business reviews to ensure visibility and accountability.Monitor CSA utilisation, engagement compliance, and customer satisfaction, applying corrective actions and operational improvements as needed.Govern delivery lifecycles, ensuring timely kick-offs, milestone tracking, deliverable submission, and close-out aligned to SLAs and documentation standards.Oversee capacity and workload planning with Resource Coordinators and Service Delivery Managers.Track and report KPIs including utilisation, CSAT, audit coverage, compliance, and billable contribution.
Leadership & People Enablement
Represent the POD in regional forums, stakeholder reviews, and business planning.Mentor and enable CSAs and partner teams, fostering accountability, growth, and continuous improvement.Partner with CSAMs, TZ Leads, and SDMs to ensure engagement readiness, compliance, and alignment to business priorities.Promote knowledge sharing and collaboration across PODs and solution areas.Identify systemic risks or delivery challenges and drive corrective actions with leadership.
Innovation & IP Contribution
Provide structured feedback to IP and central teams to improve delivery assets and in pilot programs and testing of new Success Program offerings.Share field insights, best practices, and improvement ideas across the global community.
Qualifications
Minimum Experience
10+ years of experience in IT consulting, cloud architecture, or technical delivery leadership.Active or recently held (within the past 24 months) Australian Government NV1 Security Clearance.Proven expertise across Microsoft Cloud services (Azure, M365, and/or Security solutions).Ability to apply AI concepts within customer and operational contexts.Experience leading distributed teams and coordinating cross-functional delivery with partners and vendors.Strong understanding of ITIL, DevOps, and operational frameworks, including change management, incident response, SLAs, and KPIs.Excellent communication skills, with the ability to engage executive, technical, and operational stakeholders.Strong written communication and documentation skills, producing high-quality customer deliverables.
Preferred Experience
Experience leading large-scale delivery teams within managed services or customer success models.Knowledge of SRE, governance and compliance frameworks, or operational resiliency practices.Proven coaching and mentoring capability in technical or delivery excellence roles.Experience working within multi-partner or vendor management models.Working knowledge of Power BI, Azure DevOps, or automation tools for operational reporting and analytics.Strong project management background, including governance, reporting, and delivery lifecycle management.Microsoft Certifications: Azure Solutions Architect Expert, Azure Administrator Associate, Azure AI Engineer Associate, ITIL Foundation (preferably ITIL 4).
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.