Microsoft Solutions Engineer

Description

The Microsoft Solutions Engineer is a client-facing technical pre-sales professional who partners with Account Executives, Architects, and Engineers throughout the sales cycle. This role serves as a trusted technical advisor and Microsoft product expert, translating customer business challenges, technical requirements, security considerations, and desired outcomes into compelling solutions built on the Microsoft ecosystem.

The primary objective is to secure the technical win by building customer confidence in Weidenhammer’s recommended approach. The role leads technical discovery, solution design, demonstrations, proofs of concept, technical validation, proposal development, and delivery handoff across Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Copilot, and related security and governance services.

Work closely with sales, delivery, clients, Microsoft, distributors, and strategic partners to shape business-outcomes-driven solutions. Balance technical depth with commercial awareness, clearly communicate value to technical and executive audiences, and ensure proposed solutions are secure, scalable, supportable, and aligned with the customer’s priorities, budget, timeline, and readiness.

Requirements

• •Technical Discovery & Qualification: Lead customer discovery sessions to understand business priorities, current-state architecture, pain points, constraints, stakeholders, decision criteria, success measures, and technical risks. Help qualify opportunity fit and identify the technical path to a successful outcome.
• •Solution Architecture & Design: Co-design secure, scalable, resilient, and cost-optimized Microsoft solutions. Develop solution narratives, conceptual architectures, workload mappings, assumptions, dependencies, bills of materials, licensing inputs, phased roadmaps, and statements of work appropriate to the opportunity.
• •Demonstrations, Workshops & Proofs of Concept: Plan and deliver compelling product demonstrations, architectural design sessions, hands-on workshops, and proofs of concept tailored to the customer’s use cases. Define success criteria and use technical evidence to validate platform fit and business value.
• •Technical Sales Partnership: Partner with Account Executives to develop pursuit strategy, prepare for client meetings, identify technical champions, map decision makers, advance opportunities, and maintain alignment between the customer’s business case and the proposed technical solution.
• •Technical Win Strategy: Establish and execute a technical close plan for qualified opportunities. Surface and resolve technical blockers, competitive concerns, integration questions, security requirements, and adoption risks that could prevent the customer from selecting the recommended solution.
• •RFI/RFP, Proposal & SOW Support: Contribute accurate technical content to RFIs, RFPs, proposals, security questionnaires, estimates, pricing assumptions, bills of materials, and statements of work. Partner with delivery leaders to ensure scope is achievable and responsibilities are clear.
• •Business Value & Executive Communication: Connect capabilities to measurable business outcomes. Present solution recommendations, tradeoffs, ROI/TCO considerations, risk reduction, and adoption implications to audiences ranging from engineers and administrators to business leaders and executives.
• •Objection Handling & Competitive Positioning: Address technical concerns directly and credibly. Position Microsoft and Weidenhammer solutions against relevant alternatives using customer-specific requirements, architecture, security, integration, operating model, and lifecycle value rather than feature comparisons alone.
• •Security, Governance & Responsible AI: Embed identity, security, compliance, data governance, privacy, resiliency, and responsible AI considerations into solution recommendations from the beginning of the sales cycle.
• •Handoff to Delivery: Facilitate a structured transition from pre-sales to professional services, managed services, or customer success teams. Transfer discovery findings, architecture, assumptions, risks, decisions, open items, acceptance criteria, and stakeholder expectations.
• •Practice & Partner Enablement: Maintain current knowledge of Microsoft’s product roadmap, licensing, partner programs, incentives, solution design guidance, and competitive landscape. Create reusable demonstrations, reference architectures, proposal content, and internal enablement for sales and delivery teams.
• •Customer and Market Feedback: Capture patterns, feature requests, implementation concerns, and market feedback, then share them with practice leadership, delivery, engineering, and strategic partners to improve offerings and go-to-market readiness.

Microsoft Solution Areas

The successful candidate is expected to have broad Microsoft cloud fluency and deeper expertise in one or more solution areas. The role is not expected to be the primary implementation engineer for every workload.

Cloud Infrastructure & Application Platform

Azure IaaS/PaaS, networking, identity, security, governance, migration, modernization, integration, resilience, monitoring, cost optimization, and hybrid cloud.

Modern Work & Security

Microsoft 365, Teams, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Exchange Online, Intune, Entra, Defender, Purview, and Zero Trust-aligned capabilities.

AI & Copilot

Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Agent 365, Microsoft Foundry, adoption readiness, governance, security, and responsible AI.

Competencies

• •Trusted-advisor presence with the ability to establish credibility quickly with technical and business stakeholders.
• •Exceptional discovery, active listening, facilitation, storytelling, presentation, whiteboarding, and written communication skills.
• •Ability to explain complex Microsoft technologies in clear business language without oversimplifying technical tradeoffs.
• •Strong solution-design judgment across security, scalability, integration, operations, licensing, cost, adoption, and delivery feasibility.
• •Hands-on ability to configure and deliver demonstrations or lightweight prototypes using non-production environments and sample data.
• •Commercial awareness, including opportunity qualification, value articulation, ROI/TCO, scope control, risk management, and competitive positioning.
• •Comfort managing multiple active pursuits, priorities, stakeholders, and deadlines in a collaborative, fast-paced environment.
• •Growth mindset and disciplined approach to staying current in a rapidly evolving Microsoft ecosystem.
• •Ability to collaborate across sales, consulting, engineering, managed services, project delivery, finance, legal, and partner teams.
• •High degree of integrity, customer empathy, ownership, organization, and attention to detail.
• •Experience using AI tools to assist in research, design, discovery, and proposal creation.

Preferred Education, Certification and Experience

• •Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• •Typically, 6+ years of experience in solutions engineering, solution consulting, cloud architecture, or customer-facing Microsoft technology delivery, and 3+ years of experience in technical pre-sales.
• •Demonstrated experience leading technical discovery and presenting recommended solutions to both technical teams and executive stakeholders.
• •Experience supporting complex sales cycles through demos, workshops, proofs of concept, proposals, technical validation, or solution architecture.
• •Working knowledge of cloud architecture, identity, security, networking, data, integration, governance, and operational considerations.
• •Experience creating clear technical deliverables such as diagrams, solution briefs, assumptions, estimates, bills of materials, proposals, or SOW inputs.
• •Preferred Education, Certifications and Experience
• •Current role-relevant Microsoft credentials