About the position

Are you passionate about AI and eager to transform the IT landscape? Join our dynamic team as a Sales Specialist-Cloud & AI Platforms to lead AI transformation and help customers modernize infrastructure, optimize operations, and drive innovation with Azure’s advanced AI capabilities. You’ll be part of an inclusive, high-performing, and customer-obsessed team where collaboration, connection, and continuous learning are at the heart of everything we do. As a Sales Specialist-Cloud & AI Platforms, you'll be at the forefront of AI growth and disruption, guiding customers through their AI journey and helping them achieve their strategic goals. You'll ensure customers can fully harness the transformative potential of AI to stay ahead of the competition. If you're ready to make a significant impact and drive AI transformation, we invite you to join us and be part of this exciting journey! This opportunity enables you to: Accelerate your career by leading high-impact Cloud & AI solutions. Develop technical and consultative selling skills. Build deep business acumen and future-ready capabilities. Strengthen leadership through collaboration and best practice sharing. We are currently looking for Sales Specialist-Cloud & AI Platforms, professionals to join our teams across various business groups, for varying customer sizes, in our enterprise, regulated, and partner services organizations. By applying to this role, you will be considered for multiple opportunities within Microsoft across the United States, including locations beyond where the role is posted. This role is flexible in that you can work up to 50% from home. Travel percentages will very according to role. 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 Engagement:
• Ensures each customer understands Microsoft's commitment to secure, AI-powered transformation and aligns the customer’s related priorities to the customer success plan, fostering long-term partnerships through AI-driven insights. Ensures partner teams, resources and relationships are activated, driving co-selling strategies and partner attach to each opportunity early in the sales lifecycle. Ensures connections with the partner organization (i.e. GPS) to drive share, partner health, that aligns with execution plans to accelerate customer value realization at scale.
• Assesses and qualifies sales opportunities following sales frameworks and guidelines, ensuring alignment with AI-enhanced sales methodologies and best practices. Assists in strategy development for pursuing and closing deals. Collaborates across organizations to contribute to deal orchestration and handoffs throughout the deal lifecycle with minimal guidance. Utilizes best practices to gain customer buy-in, secure deals, and manage risks to support sales activities across the solution area.
• Sales & Pipeline Management:
• Participates in sales pipeline reviews with internal stakeholders to drive forecasting accuracy and meeting sales targets, ensuring the use of AI-powered analytics and forecasting tools to enhance precision. Maintains sales and/or consumption pipeline hygiene to enable tracking to achieve assigned sales metrics using all available tools, resources, and processes. Drives usage and/or consumption pipeline hygiene to actively monitor adoption trends, identify opportunities for intervention, enabling customers to realize the value of solutions purchased, drive expansion, and ensure healthier, more predictable renewals.
• Assesses business and emerging opportunities in context of provided feedback to contribute to the enhancement of the customer portfolio and support customer innovation initiatives. Utilizes technology (e.g., AI sales agents, automation, Power Platforms) to support growth within the assigned domain. Reviews propensity, renewal, consumption, and usage data to help inform sales strategy prioritization. Coordinates with partners assigned to each account and/or opportunity to assist in handoffs with other teams (e.g., Global Partner Solutions [GPS], Customer Success Unit [CSU], Industry Solutions Delivery [ISD], Partner) throughout the deal lifecycle.
• Sales Strategy:
• Participates in discussions with stakeholders and decision makers for customers to identify and qualify sales opportunities. Collaborates with internal stakeholders to support and contribute to customer success. Collaborates with account teams to align the customer's artificial intelligence (AI) transformation vision with their business priorities and success objectives. Incorporates security principles in customer interactions, opportunity, and pursuits to maintain trust and compliance standards.
• Collaborates with others cross-organizationally and assists in the development of solutions that facilitate AI- and cloud-driven transformations for customers within their solution area. Utilizes existing strategies to help differentiate Microsoft's offerings in a competitive landscape. Leverages established guidelines to advise customers on technologies and solutions that align with their goals and drive digital transformation.
• Leverages whitespace analysis and partners with others to identify business opportunities within the assigned market domain, utilizing AI-driven market intelligence tools to assess trends and insights. Gathers and assesses market intelligence, trends, and insights with the team. Utilizes established market analysis approach to align sales strategies with market trends with minimal guidance.
• Assists in assessing solution area(s) and identifies trends to support aligning sales plays with customer demands, incorporating AI-driven predictive analytics to forecast future market needs. Collaborates across teams to suggest solutions that support customer business objective
• Other
• Embodies our Culture & Values

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, or related field AND 2+ years technology-related sales or account management experience
• OR equivalent experience
• 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.

Nice-to-haves

• Master's Degree in Business Administration (i.e., MBA), Information Technology, Information Security, or related field AND 6+ years experience in technology-related sales or account management
• OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, Information Security, or related field AND 8+ years experience in technology-related sales or account management
• OR equivalent experience
• 8+ years solution or services sales experience
• 8+ years of experience selling business solutions to global customers with a focus on Cloud Native, AI, and/or Data Platform and Analytics
• 8+ years of experience engaging with large enterprise customers, including managing multiple stakeholders and navigating complex sales cycles
• Working knowledge of Cloud Platform: Understanding of Microsoft Azure infrastructure, data, and AI application platforms, with the ability to articulate technical solutions to business and IT stakeholders