Hey everyone! I'm curious about what a typical day looks like for a Cloud & AI Solution Engineer at Microsoft. From what I've read in job descriptions, it seems to involve a lot of presales activities like demos, Proof of Concepts (PoCs), and workshops. Can anyone give me a deeper insight into how extensive a PoC is? Maybe provide an example of one? Also, if there are any other responsibilities I might be missing, I'd love to hear about those too.
3 Answers
From my experience as a former product lead, a Cloud & AI Solution Engineer acts like a bridge between customers and the Azure product teams. Their day typically involves educating clients on best practices for Azure, gathering feedback, and relaying it back to the product teams. It's about understanding the customer's needs and their environment while suggesting solutions based on Azure's offerings. A lot of learning happens through hands-on experience and discussions.
The role of a Solution Engineer is pretty new and shares similarities with the previous Technical Account Manager (TAM) role. It's essentially a presales job focused on demos, PoCs, workshops, and architecture reviews. You definitely need a solid technical background in Azure. You'll manage the progression of client engagements from uncommitted to finalized projects, working alongside Cloud Solution Architects. Microsoft is really investing in this role, and many former CSAs are transitioning into it.
That's a great question! In my experience, the depth of a PoC often depends on client needs, but a solid timeframe of a few weeks is pretty typical to show effectiveness!
As someone who collaborates closely with Microsoft for cloud and AI solutions, I can say that they mainly guide and answer our questions rather than doing the actual implementation. They help assess our existing environment to identify gaps. Recently, I worked with them on scaling OpenAI for our needs. We've also had them assist with an AI PoC, but they outsourced the execution part.
Thanks for the info! Just to clarify, how in-depth do you usually go with a PoC? In my current presales engineer role, we typically conduct a client workshop to gain engagement and then design and build a PoC over 2-3 weeks to ensure we deliver value. Does that align with what a Solution Engineer does?