Technology Specialist

at  Microsoft

Imagine stepping into a role where your expertise in cybersecurity can make a global impact, where every challenge is an opportunity to innovate, and where you’re part of a team that’s as driven and passionate about protecting our world from cyber threats as you are. If you’re ready to push boundaries and drive the future of Microsoft’s security solutions, then we want you on our team as a Microsoft Security Technology Specialist in South Africa. Join us, and let’s empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more—securely.
The Microsoft Security organization’s mission of making the world a safer place has never been more important. As threats become more frequent and sophisticated, we must work to keep our customers safe through our Security Solutions. The Technical Specialist within the Microsoft Specialist Team Unit (STU) is at the forefront of this effort, engaging directly with customers to contribute to their success. As the largest security company in the world, we are ideally placed to think outside the box to help our customers make the world a safer place.
As a Security Technical Specialist, you will be a senior technical sales leader and trusted customer advisor, working with cutting-edge security technologies such as Microsoft Defender for XDR and Sentinel. You will lead a v-team of other internal, partner and consulting resources to help map Microsoft solutions to customer security challenges and priorities, demonstrate and prove our solutions, and win the technical decision enabling the team to achieve/exceed quarterly and annual revenue targets. You will help solve complex security challenges for our customers, enabling them to help modernize their security architecture and posture.
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.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS (RQS)

• Technical pre-sales or technical consulting experience
• OR
• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field AND technical pre-sales or technical consulting experience
• OR
• Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field technical pre-sales or technical consulting experience

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS (PQS)

• Technical pre-sales, technical consulting, or technology delivery, or related experience
• OR equivalent experience.
• Experience with cloud and hybrid, or on premises infrastructures, architecture designs, migrations, industry standards, and/or technology management.
• Certification in relevant technologies or disciplines (e.g., Office 365, Power BI, Azure Architect and Development exams, Cloud Platform Technologies, Information Security, Architecture).
• Technical pre-sales, technical consulting, or related experience
• Cloud Computing: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Services (PaaS), and Software as a service and understanding of one or more cloud security standards and frameworks such as CIS, NIST, CSA, etc.,
• Experience and passion for learning (technical and professional skills); implementing practices from others; trying, failing, and learning from both successes and failures; sharing practices and knowledge for others’ benefit
• Certification in Microsoft 365 Security Administration or Azure Security
• One or more of Industry certifications such as CISSP, CCSP, IAAP, etc. Is preferred
• Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems; Next Gen Web Application Firewalls and Secure Web Gateways; Threat detection technologies; Log analysis and Incident Response; Cloud security technologies, architectures and concepts such as Zero Trust, cloud security posture management, cloud workload protection, Cloud code security and Cloud infrastructure entitlement management
  Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, 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 and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations

• Be the primary technical point of contact for potential customers during the sales process, owing and driving technical win for security opportunities
• Deep technical understanding of cloud security architectures, solutions/technologies including Microsoft M365 Defender, Defender for cloud and Sentinel and expertise in extended detection and response (XDR), zero trust and cloud security solutions and architectures
• Remediate blockers; leads and ensures technical wins for Microsoft Security and adjacent technologies. Engages with and reaches out to customers proactively and independently; builds credibility with customers as a trusted advisor for Microsoft Security; and searches for and uses Microsoft Security customer references; and facilitates handoff to customer success for post sales deployment.
• Develop strategies and recommendations to improve the client’s security posture, shapes technical win plan and tailors Microsoft messaging to audience for security opportunities. Enhances team capabilities for extended detection and response (XDR), zero trust and cloud security and develops differentiated compete strategies for Microsoft Security for assigned customers.
• Lead technical presentations, demonstrations, workshops, architecture design sessions, explain, demonstrate, and architect the solution to help solve customer security challenges and priorities.
• Drives cross-workload support for Microsoft solutions for security. Leverages insights and coaches’ teams to align new or changing technology to customer security needs.
• Responsible for engaging with other teams within and outside the organization throughout the sales cycle. Engaging partners in sell-with scenarios and supporting their technical capabilities is key to scaling solution delivery.