Principal Apps AI Consultant

Overview Microsoft Industry Solutions - Global Center 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 1000+ exceptional people, GCID presents a great opportunity for highly skilled services professionals to make a foray into consulting, solution development and delivery roles. Senior leader responsible for the successful technical execution and delivery of complex client projects across diverse domains. This role acts as a strategic anchor between clients, senior leadership, delivery managers, project managers, and delivery teams. In the AI-first GCID organization, Architect(s) are expected to embed AI-native thinking into delivery models, ensuring solutions are intelligent, scalable, and aligned with business outcomes. The ideal candidate is passionate about technology, demonstrates breadth of expertise, and advocates for solutions that deliver true client value. Responsibilities AI-First Delivery Leadership • Embed AI-first principles into delivery workflows, leveraging automation and intelligent orchestration where applicable. • Own the Architecture and drive end-to-end delivery of complex projects, ensuring solutions are scalable, robust, and aligned with client business outcomes. • Drive engineering excellence through reusable components, accelerators, and scalable architecture. • Oversee technical execution across multiple projects, ensuring adherence to best practices, quality standards, and compliance requirements. • Collaborate with clients and internal stakeholders to define strategies, delivery plans, milestones, and risk mitigation approaches. • Act as a technical point of contact for clients, translating business requirements into scalable technical solutions. • Ensure delivery models are optimized for modern, AI-native execution, including integration of automation and intelligent processes. • Ability to step into at‑risk projects, quickly assess issues, and establish a credible path to recovery or exit. Engineering Excellence • Champion high-quality engineering practices across all delivery engagements. • Ensure adherence to coding standards, architectural integrity, and performance benchmarks. • Define and institutionalize engineering guardrails that embed secure coding, test‑driven development, observability. • Encourage continuous learning and technical certifications to maintain cutting-edge expertise. • Drive adoption of modern delivery methodologies (Agile, DevOps, CI/CD) to ensure robust and scalable solutions. • Foster a culture of technical rigor, innovation, and accountability within the team. Innovation & Thought Leadership • Monitor and evaluate emerging technologies to inform strategic direction. • Lead innovation in delivery models, reusable assets, and accelerators to enhance efficiency and impact. • Champion modern thinking and best practices across teams and engagements to foster a culture of continuous improvement. Client Engagement & Solutioning • Use design thinking to shape user‑centric solutions, aligning business goals, architecture decisions, and delivery execution. • Engage with clients to understand business needs and provide expert guidance throughout the project lifecycle. • Support pre-sales and solutioning efforts with estimations, proof-of-concepts, and technical proposals. • Build and maintain strong client relationships, ensuring high levels of satisfaction and value delivery. Team Management & Mentorship • Lead and mentor cross-functional teams, fostering a culture of learning, collaboration, and technical excellence. • Conduct reviews, provide feedback, and support professional development of team members. Quality & Compliance • Ensure secure, compliant, and reliable solution delivery through secure coding, test‑driven development, observability, design reviews, and quality gates across all engagements. Strategic Partnering • Serve as a strategic partner for internal and external stakeholders on key initiatives. • Provide strategic guidance and execution oversight to ensure alignment with organizational goals. Qualifications • 20+ years of experience in software/solution engineering, with at least 10–15 years as Architect and delivery leadership roles. • Proven experience in leading delivery of complex, multi-disciplinary projects. • Strong understanding of modern delivery methodologies (Agile, Scrum, DevOps, etc.). • Excellent communication, stakeholder management, problem-solving, and team leadership skills. • Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience). • Relevant certifications are a plus. Areas of Expertise Full Stack Application Engineering • • End‑to‑end design and development of modern web and mobile applications using React, Angular, Next.js, Blazor, or equivalent frameworks • Strong backend engineering expertise using .NET, Java, Node.js, or Python, applying clean architecture, domain‑driven design, and API‑first principles • Experience building scalable microservices and distributed systems, leveraging REST, gRPC, event‑driven architectures, and asynchronous processing • Hands‑on data and platform fundamentals, including relational and NoSQL databases (Azure SQL, PostgreSQL, Cosmos DB), performance tuning, scalability, resiliency, and application security AI‑Driven Application Development • • Build AI‑driven, cloud‑native applications with intelligence embedded into core workflows. • Hands‑on use of GitHub Copilot across the SDLC, enabling solutioning, development, CI/CD, and production readiness. • Lead a Copilot‑assisted engineering culture, driving AI pair‑programming and high‑velocity delivery at scale. • Modernize large application estates using Copilot‑assisted code comprehension, refactoring, and cloud‑native migration. • Coach teams and customers on safe, enterprise‑grade Copilot usage, prompt strategies, and adoption patterns. • Apply Responsible AI principles, embedding security, privacy, governance, and compliance into delivery workflows. AI‑Enabled Application Development • • Deliver production‑grade AI solutions using Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Services, Azure AI Foundry, and custom ML, including RAG architectures with Azure AI Search and enterprise data grounding. • Deep expertise in LLM integration—prompt engineering, context and grounding strategies—for copilots, conversational applications, and intelligent business workflows. • Proven design of agentic AI systems (single and multi‑agent), with orchestration, tools, memory, human‑in‑the‑loop, and enterprise‑ready operations including observability, governance, and cost/performance optimization. Cloud‑Native Architecture (Azure) • • Design PaaS‑first, cloud‑native Azure architectures, prioritizing managed services for scale, resilience, security, and efficiency. • Architect solutions across App Service, Container Apps, AKS, Functions, and API Management, selecting optimal compute per workload and business need. • Strong expertise in identity, security, and networking, including Entra ID, RBAC, Managed Identity, Key Vault, private endpoints, VNET integration, and landing patterns. • Build highly available and resilient systems, including multi‑region deployments, disaster recovery, and fault‑tolerant architectures. • Apply cost‑aware and Well‑Architected principles, optimizing reliability, performance, operations, and cost efficiency. DevOps, Platform & Developer Productivity • • Design and operate secure CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps and GitHub Actions with automated build, test, and deployment. • Hands‑on Infrastructure‑as‑Code using Bicep, ARM, and Terraform, leveraging GitHub Copilot to enforce enterprise standards. • Deep understanding of observability and reliability engineering, including logging, metrics, tracing, SLOs, alerting, and production readiness. • Drive developer productivity and delivery velocity through inner‑source practices, reusable platforms, accelerators, and automation. • Embed DevSecOps and platform engineering, delivering paved‑road, self‑service capabilities that balance speed, governance, reliability, and compliance. Solutioning, Pre-Sales & Technical Leadership • • Lead technical solutioning, estimations, and support architecture design during pre-sales and delivery shaping • Translate business outcomes into clear architecture, execution plans, and risk mitigation strategies • Influence technical direction across multiple teams and engagements • Act as a trusted advisor to clients and internal leadership Frontier Engineering & Customer Enablement Skills • • Lead rapid prototyping, pilots, and early enterprise deployments, taking ideas from whiteboard to production with minimal friction • Hands‑on troubleshooting and production support, addressing performance, reliability, and security issues to unblock progress • Side‑by‑side engineering engagement with customer teams, accelerating deployments, adoption, and time‑to‑value through direct coding support • Outcome‑driven delivery in ambiguous, high‑pressure environments, building reusable accelerators and reference implementations while engaging senior customer stakeholders Personal Attributes • • Passion for technology and innovation. • Ability to interact confidently with senior leaders and clients. • Strong decision-making skills and a consultative mindset. • Flexibility to manage in a fast-moving, ambiguous consulting environment. • Commitment to continuous learning and professional growth. Other • Embody our  culture  and  values 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.