Consultant - Data & AI

Overview Microsoft Industry Solutions - Global Center for Innovation and Delivery Center (GCID) delivers end-to-end solutions by enabling accelerated adoption and productive use of Microsoft technologies. An organization of well over 2000+ exceptional people, GCID presents a great opportunity for highly skilled services professionals to make a foray into consulting, solution development and delivery roles. The ideal consultant is passionate about technology, has breadth rather than specific product depth, and has the drive and courage to articulate and stand up for a great solution delivering true value for the client. As a Data & AI consultant, you will deliver quality engagements with your expertise, as a key contributor to high profile data and AI projects to ensure customer value. The ideal candidate must have the ability to combine their technical skills, leadership skills, creativity, and customer focus to deliver great solutions to the customers and ensure they get the best out of our technologies and solutions. Consulting Delivery professionals bring subject matter and solution expertise to architectural teams, customers, and partners. They apply deep technical and business knowledge to accelerate the adoption of Microsoft devices and services by ensuring strategic, architectural, and operational alignment to customer and partner objectives. Responsibilities • Works as an Individual contributor and key member of the Data and AI team and helps in timely execution of assigned deliverables with accurate estimates, work priorities, and accommodates project changes and trade-offs necessary for a successful release. • Applies technical experience and industry-specific knowledge to develop solutions, based on an analysis of how the proposed approach affects the business objectives of customers and partners. • Works to accelerate the value proposition of customer/partner engagements by helping to design, develop, and deploy solutions on Microsoft technologies and methodologies. • Contributes to the overall efficacy and quality of a project team’s technical delivery within assigned engagements. • Defines dependencies and risks that go beyond the immediate scope and timeframe for a complex project. Develops contingency plans, risk-mitigation implementation criteria, and alternative strategies to manage short- and long-term risks and manages technical escalations. • Drives opportunities to expand or accelerate the adoption and consumption of cloud and Microsoft technologies. Collaborates, as appropriate, with peers and other teams (e.g., Sales, account-aligned team) to scale the business with existing high-stake or strategic customers, by articulating/developing value propositions of strategic Microsoft products and services. • Align with innovation and digital transformation initiatives. Ensures the use of existing intellectual property (IP) and delivers value to customers. • Responsible for implementing the technology strategy with support from Senior peers • Applies information-compliance and assurance policies to ensure stakeholder confidence. • Drives new ways of thinking, across the division and subsidiary, to improve quality, engineering productivity, and responsiveness to feedback and changing priorities. • Consistently upskills through regular trainings and certifications on Azure Data and AI to be able to contribute to the future needs of the organization and customers Qualifications • 4 - 6 years of experience • Bachelor's degree in computer science engineering or equivalent work experience. Higher relevant education is preferred. • Knowledge of solution design, planning, development and deployment of complex solutions • One or more of the following certifications, or an equivalent industry certification is a plus:   Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate (DP-600)  / Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate (AI102)  / Microsoft Certified: Azure Solution Architect Expert (AZ-305) Core Data Engineering & Platform Skills • Hands-on experience in Data Engineering across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid environments • Strong foundational experience with Azure Data Services and data platform modernization initiatives • Handson exposure to Data Warehouse and analytics using platforms like Microsoft Fabric, and Azure Synapse Analytics; Azure Databricks is a plus • Experience/knowledge of one or more SQL and NoSQL database systems • Hands-on experience building AI-powered data pipelines using ETL/ELT tools like: • Azure Data Factory (ADF), SSIS, Talend, Informatica, Airflow • Exposure to data migrations, platform upgrades, and modernization efforts • Understanding of multitenant data platform designs, basic security hardening, and access control concepts • Knowledge of Big Data ecosystems like Spark, Databricks, Kafka, Hadoop, etc. AI / ML Foundations • Experience building or supporting ML ready datasets and basic feature engineering • Exposure to operationalizing ML pipelines and MLOps concepts, on Azure stack • Foundational knowledge of: • Large Language Models (LLMs) • Model training, evaluation, and deployment workflows • Azure cloud and AI stack like Azure Foundry, Azure OpenAI, etc • Handson experience or knowledge in one or more of: • NLP, Document Intelligence & Indexing • Computer Vision • RAG frameworks or AI Search • Basic understanding of Prompt Engineering • Exposure to or knowledge of deep learning/Gen AI frameworks such as TensorFlow/PyTorch, and orchestration frameworks like LangChain/LangGraph • Familiarity with Responsible AI principles – fairness, interpretability, and governance Engineering Practices & Delivery • Experience working in Agile teams with knowledge of/exposure to Azure DevOps • Understanding of DataOps and MLOps practices, automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and deployment workflows, preferably on Azure Foundry • Knowledge of secure coding practices, observability basics, and performance considerations • Handson programming experience, preferably in Python Consulting Mindset & Collaboration • Ability to work closely with senior consultants, architects, and customers to co-create innovative solutions with customers to help solve their business challenges • Strong communication skills to explain technical concepts to business stakeholders • Comfortable working in ambiguous environments, learning quickly, and adapting to change • Eagerness to build engineering excellence, reusable components, and best practices Growth & Learning Orientation • Strong interest in continuous learning and technical certifications • Curiosity to explore emerging data and AI technologies • Willingness to receive feedback, grow technical depth, and expand ownership over time Data Architecture Foundations (Good to have) • Good understanding of core data architecture patterns: • Dimensional modeling • Lambda and Kappa architectures • Timeseries data processing • Familiarity with Azure Stream Analytics and Azure Analysis Services • Awareness of data governance concepts and tools (opensource or proprietary) 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. 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.