Cloud & AI Solution Engineer - Data Platform (Public Sector)

Are you passionate about Data Platforms and eager to solve complex problems in a fast-paced setting?  If so, we invite you to join our Cloud & AI team as a Solution Engineer in Data Platform for commercial customers at Microsoft. Here, you'll be at the forefront of innovation, working on cutting-edge projects that leverage the latest technologies to drive meaningful impact. Join us and be part of a team that thrives on collaboration, creativity, and continuous learning. You will be empowering the UK National Security and Defence community through secure, scalable, and innovative data solutions. As a Solution Engineer embedded in the Ministry of Defence ecosystem, you’ll be at the forefront of digital transformation—supporting mission-critical workloads across the Army, Navy, RAF, Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), Strategic Command, and other MoD entities. This is your chance to work on transformative projects that combine cutting-edge cloud services with real-world impact. You’ll be part of a collaborative, creative, and growth-oriented team that thrives on innovation and continuous learning. The Databases & Analytics space represents a major growth opportunity for Microsoft Azure, its partners, and customers—spanning a rich portfolio of IaaS and PaaS services designed for the AI age. These technologies empower customers to build, deploy, and manage data and analytics solutions in a cloud-native way. As a Solution Engineer (SE), you’ll play a pivotal role in helping enterprises unlock the full potential of Microsoft’s cloud database and analytics stack across every stage of deployment. You’ll work closely with engineering leaders and platform teams to accelerate adoption of the Azure Databases, Analytics and Purview, through hands-on engagements such as proof of concepts, hackathons, and architecture workshops. This role offers a unique opportunity to accelerate your career, deepen your business and technical expertise, and become a trusted advisor in solution design and deployment. You’ll guide customers through secure, scalable architectures, influence technical decisions, and drive the modernization of their data platforms—realizing the full value of Microsoft’s ecosystem while enjoying flexible work opportunities. 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

• Drive technical sales with decision makers using demos and PoCs to influence solution design and enable production deployments.
• Lead hands-on engagements—hackathons and architecture workshops—to accelerate adoption of Microsoft’s cloud platforms.
• Build trusted relationships with platform leads, co-designing secure, scalable architectures and solutions
• Resolve technical blockers and objections, collaborating with engineering to share insights and improve products.
• Maintain deep expertise in Analytics Portfolio: Microsoft Fabric (OneLake, DW, real-time intelligence, BI, Copilot), Azure Databricks, Purview Data Governance and Azure Databases: SQL DB, Cosmos DB, PostgreSQL.
• Maintain and grow expertise in on-prem EDW (Teradata, Netezza, Exadata), Hadoop & BI solutions.
• Represent Microsoft through thought leadership in cloud Database & Analytics communities and customer forums

Qualifications

• Several years technical pre-sales, technical consulting, or technology delivery, ro regulated environments (e.g. Defence, Intelligence, Government) or related experience
• Expert in Azure Databases (SQL DB, Cosmos DB, PostgreSQL) from migration & modernize and creating new AI apps OR Equivalent experience.
• Expert in Azure Analytics (Fabric, Azure Databricks, Purview) OR competitors (BigQuery, Redshift, Snowflake) in data warehouse, data lake, big data, analytics, real-time intelligent, and reporting using integrated Data Security & Governance.
• Proven ability to lead technical engagements (e.g., hackathons, PoCs, MVPs) that drive production-scale outcomes.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical engagements that drive production-scale outcomes in sensitive or classified domains.
• Familiarity with MoD infrastructure, including MODNET
• Experience working with UK Government frameworks and stakeholders (e.g. GDS, DSIT, DE&S).
• Clearance: The successful candidate must have or be eligible to obtain the Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV) clearance as issued by the United Kingdom Security Vetting Unit (UKSV). Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Degree in Computer Science, Information
• Proven years experience with cloud and hybrid, or on premises infrastructure, architecture designs, migrations, industry standards, and/or technology management
• Proficient on data warehouse & big data migration including on-prem appliance (Teradata, Netezza, Oracle), Hadoop (Cloudera, Hortonworks) and Azure Synapse Gen2.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.