Cloud & AI Specialist - Higher Education

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Overview

Join our team where innovation meets meaningful purpose!

Are you passionate about harnessing the power of cloud and AI to drive transformation? Step into the role of Cloud & AI Specialist on Microsoft’s Public Sector team, and help Higher Education institutions reimagine how they teach, research, and innovate transforming experiences and shaping brighter futures for students. You’ll accelerate Azure adoption across Canada, collaborating with a passionate team of Solution Engineers and cross-functional experts. Together, you’ll design impactful, future-ready solutions that address complex challenges, and create lasting value for students, educators, and communities.

As a Cloud & AI Specialist - Higher Education, you are both a business leader and a trusted technical advisor within Microsoft’s enterprise sales organization, working with our most important Public Sector Higher Education customers in Canada. You bring a unique blend of deep technical expertise and sharp business acumen to drive Azure adoption and AI transformation. In this role, you will advance customer engagements to achieve, and exceed, quarterly Azure consumption targets across Infrastructure, Data, and AI platforms in your assigned accounts. You have the executive presence to engage confidently with decision-makers, inspiring them to imagine new possibilities through the Microsoft Cloud.

You will lead a virtual team of sales, technical, and services professionals to help customers turn vision into reality. From identifying high-impact projects to building compelling business cases and driving them to production, you will guide customers through their transformation journey. You will build and sustain strong relationships at the CxO level, influencing long-term strategic direction and acting as a trusted advisor to business and technology leaders.

Your work will help customers evaluate cloud strategies, modernize applications and data, and adopt innovative AI solutions. You will anticipate and remove roadblocks to ensure smooth deployments, driving both customer satisfaction and measurable results.

At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. We bring a growth mindset to our work, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to reach shared goals. We are guided by respect, integrity, and accountability, fostering an inclusive culture where everyone can succeed at work and beyond.

Qualifications

Required/minimum qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, Information Security, Information Security, or related field AND 4+ years experience in technology-related sales or account management OR equivalent experience.
• 2+ years solution or services sales experience.

Additional or preferred qualifications

• Master's Degree in Business Administration (i.e., MBA), Information Technology, Information Security, or related field AND 6+ years experience in technology-related sales or account management OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, Information Security, or related field AND 8+ years experience in technology-related sales or account management OR equivalent experience.
• 4+ years solution or services sales experience.
• Experience working with or selling into Higher Education.

Solution Area Specialists IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across Canada is CAD $103,500 - CAD $170,700 per year.

Find additional pay information here:

https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/canada-pay-information.html

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until August 29^th, 2025

Responsibilities

Sales Execution

• Inspire with insight: Bring impactful industry perspectives into every customer conversation, positioning yourself as a trusted thought leader. Advise Higher Education institutions across business functions on their digital transformation journey, leading virtual transformational shifts that drive deployment and create measurable business value. Integrate partners into account and territory planning to deliver holistic, impactful engagements.
• Drive new opportunities: Orchestrate with your team to run targeted campaigns, uncover fresh opportunities, and generate high-quality engagements. Lead strategic conversations with high-potential customers, those with significant budgets, competitive landscapes, or global reach in partnership with account teams and partners.
• Build pipeline and guide strategy: Facilitate collaboration across the Account Team Unit (ATU) and Specialist Team Unit (STU) to build a strong pipeline. Mentor others on effective social selling practices. Apply Microsoft’s proven sales process to qualify opportunities, decide where to focus, and guide customers on the most effective ways to achieve their goals with Microsoft solutions.

Scaling and Collaboration

• Expand impact through partnerships: Plan and execute opportunities by engaging the right resources and partners to cross-sell and up-sell across solution areas. Identify, validate, and coordinate partner solutions that align with customer priorities. Provide input to Global Partner Solutions (GPS) to refine partner strategies and connect ecosystems that drive business growth.
• Lead collaborative orchestration: Bring together internal stakeholders and external partners—including the Enterprise Operating Unit using a holistic, territory-wide approach. Position opportunities to promote collaboration, participation, and maximum value creation for customers.

Technical Knowledge

• Maintain deep cloud expertise: Hold or actively pursue Azure Fundamentals certification and sustain at least 200-level technical knowledge. Apply this expertise to engage credibly with technical stakeholders, guiding decisions and driving solution adoption.

Sales Excellence

• Shape markets and spark innovation: Grow the Canadian education market by uniting technical expertise, industry insights, strategic partners, and resources to deliver groundbreaking solutions. Lead teams in exploring emerging opportunities, refining solution portfolios, and empowering innovation across Canada’s Higher Education sector.