Partner Technology Strategist

The Partner Technology Strategist  is a technical sales and strategy role within Americas Enterprise Partner Solutions (EPS), focused on Microsoft’s Strategic ISV partners.

The Partner Technology Strategist serves as the trusted technical advisor and technology strategist for a portfolio of strategic partners, connecting the partner’s business priorities and product strategy with Microsoft’s technology and platform opportunities.The role is fundamentally a sell-with motion. A PTS helps partners define and execute their product and technology strategy, accelerate adoption of Microsoft technologies, and build differentiated solutions that create value for the partner’s customers and drive joint business outcomes.Key areas of focus include:

• Partner product and technology strategy: Shape technical priorities aligned to the partner’s business strategy, customer needs, and growth opportunities.
• Technical planning and execution: Translate strategy into actionable joint technical plans, identifying the highest-value scenarios and investments.
• Solution and platform adoption: Help partners incorporate Microsoft technologies into their products, platforms, and solutions.
• AI and cloud transformation: Identify opportunities for partners to modernize their offerings and accelerate adoption of Microsoft’s cloud and AI platform.
• Technical orchestration: Bring together the right Microsoft engineering, specialist, architecture, and field resources to accelerate partner outcomes and remove technical blockers.
• Sell-with impact: Enable partners to take differentiated Microsoft-powered solutions to their customers and create repeatable, scalable customer opportunities.

Success is not simply measured by delivering technical guidance. The PTS connects partner strategy, Microsoft technology, and execution to create scalable solutions and measurable joint business impact. 

Partner and Industry Insights

Generates business insights based on engagement experience and proactive collaboration with the partner, internal teams, and industry, to conduct forecasting and develop recommendations for managing accounts and subsidiary planning. Challenges partners to consider alternative business models to meet business and market needs, and adapts plans to insights.       

Orchestrates teams to gather information, collaborate on performance markers, and identify potential risks in partner accounts. Brings in business and industry insights to address the broader business challenges for the partner and deliver solutions.

Trusted Advisor
Acts as the voice of the partner and internal advocate by providing insights, feedback, and challenges from the partner to internal teams (e.g., product groups, engineers).            

Supplements existing technical decision maker (TDM) and/or business decision maker (BDM) relationships with additional ones at the C- and direct-report level by researching organization charts, identifying and contacting TDMs/BDMs, and beginning to advise on solutions and position Microsoft offerings.

Strategy Formulation

Provides analysis of overall partner needs and advises on gaps that would benefit from Microsoft solutions, using an understanding of the business strategies and outcomes that technology can support; advises internal teams on how to identify and address gaps in order to drive end solutions.

Ensures execution of technology strategy and/or digital transformation by identifying and resolving technical blockers that arise during strategy planning and implementation and driving technology adoption.                          

Creates mid-term to long-term (e.g., 12 months plus) technical and business roadmaps for one or more accounts, outlining the digital transformation journey and core wins; drives and articulates business changes in the roadmaps around foundational, traditional capabilities. Builds technical engagement or enablement plan, captures baseline, and drives envisioning to support mid-term to long-term business plans.

Demand Generation and Orchestration

Orchestrates internal teams to ensure sufficient technical resources for demands, from a limited pool of resources, when appropriate.

Differentiated Value Proposition

Creates and maintains a vision with business and technology solution scenarios and services that helps partners meet their business goals, achieve their long-term corporate vision, and maximize commercial success.

Drives conversations that present the strategic relationship between Microsoft technologies, solutions/offers, products, and services compared with the competitor's solution and the partner's overall business goals and objectives.

Education and Thought Leadership

Uses existing and new readiness resources to support enablement plans for partner technology adoption at the national and regional level. Contributes to innovations to accelerate meeting goals for partner capacity, maximize reach and impact and drive long-term engagement and thought leadership on the Microsoft platform.

Provides strategic input to virtual team members (e.g., Account Team) using a thorough knowledge of Microsoft technologies, partner accounts, and digital transformations and their context in the competitive landscape.    

Ensuring Success

Plays a key role in helping the partner and their customers be successful with digital transformation and Microsoft technology adoption by helping them realize the value, meet their business objectives, achieve their consumption and business targets, and accelerate growth. Works with others (may leverage the partner solutions architect [PSA]) to guide the development of partner technology roadmaps that enable them to expand into new markets and provides them with a competitive edge.

Proactively orchestrates execution and monitoring of projects/programs in accordance with partner plan to develop solution offerings and value realization across a variety of solution areas. Sets timelines and milestones, and tracks progress toward objectives. Builds industry knowledge and establishes technical credibility with partners to drive the project agenda.

Solution Development

Secures commitment from critical or high-stakes partners to develop innovative and complex solutions using Microsoft technologies in collaboration with partner, and builds solutions into the partner ecosystem to enable partners to sell to end-customers.

Partner Enablement

Helps partners build practices or solutions and shares their experience and influence with partners through solution-sales guidance; provides guidance to immediate team to ensure that technical pre-sales, deployment, and consumption are part of solution development efforts; anticipates partners' technical blockers and executes a plan to divert blockers before they have the potential to occur. 

Required/Minimum Qualifications

• Master's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business or related field AND 1+ year(s) technical consulting, technical consultative selling, product development, or related technical/sales experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, business or related field AND 2+ years technical consulting, technical consultative selling, product development, or related technical/sales experience OR equivalent experience.

Other Requirements 

This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship. Candidates must have authorization to work in the United States that does not now or in the future require employer sponsorship.​

Additional or Preferred Qualifications

• Master's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business or related field AND 3+ years technical consulting, technical consultative selling, product development, or related technical/sales experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business or related field AND 5+ years technical consulting, technical consultative selling, product development, or related technical/sales experience OR equivalent experience.
• 5+ years experience with relevant technologies (e.g., cloud, infrastructure, Microsoft platform)
• 5+ years experience with relevant technologies (e.g., AI, data, cloud, infrastructure, Microsoft platform).
• 3+ years of industry channel pre-sales experience preferably within a SaaS organization
• 3+ years of product/program management experience preferably within a SaaS organization 
• Knowledge of partner ISV/SI ecosystem in retail sector vertical

Partner Technology Strategy IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $86,100 - $169,800 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 $113,300 - $187,400 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.