About HSO
HSO Success and Ambition
HSO has grown organically to have more than 400 people throughout the UK and we expect to continue to grow significantly in the next five years. We are a leading member of the Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle, founded in 1987, and specialize in sectors such as Retail, Manufacturing, Professional Services, Financial Services and Local Government. We’ve won several prestigious awards over the last few years including being voted in the UK’s top 10 Best Large companies to work for the last 3 years running. This year we are also proud to have been named the D365 Finance Microsoft Partner of the Year Award and Finalist for D365 Sales & Marketing.
HSO is the place to work for those in the Microsoft Dynamics channel. People join and stay because we care; about adding value to our customers, about delivering what we say we will, striving to improve ourselves, being inclusive and having fun.
The core values that enable us to work so well together, also mean our customers want to work with us. We choose to be different to other Microsoft Partners. Caring about our people, customers and quality of work differentiates us. We always support our people and customers to achieve shared, agreed goals.
Job Purpose
As the Cloud Solution Architect you will lead all engagements with our customers from presales to discovery, designing and implementation of wider cloud services with a focus on Power platform solutions. This means having overall ownership of the solution, ensuring that the delivered solutions are implemented in a cost-effective, high quality and controlled manner that satisfies customers’ technical and business requirements. Your responsibilities will involve leading customer workshops, documenting requirements, defining deliverables, and estimating projects with the assistance of the delivery team.
The role is key in designing new go-to-market propositions working with sales teams to ensure correct customer alignment, and with the AP Delivery Lead to ensure the team has the necessary skills and expertise to implement the solution.
The role works closely with the Cloud Strategist and other Cloud Solution Architects to ensure that AP solutions are aligned with the overall cloud strategy for that customer.
This role is part of the small senior leadership team for the AP team and will help guide the delivery team to develop the skills required to be the best Power Platform partner in the market.
Reports to: Application Platform Practice Lead
Overview of Experience and Key Responsibilities
Engagement
- Promote new or emerging Technologies to the HSO Management Team where you believe HSO can benefit and provide a competitive advantage.
- Responsible for developing relationships with the Microsoft team to help with sales and delivery of our projects.
- Collaborate closely with the Business App practice within HSO to identify opportunities for the AP and wider Cloud services.
- Work in tandem with the Practice and delivery leads to define propositions, solution packages, and implementation accelerators.
Managing Risk
- Support EA and pre-sales teams to ensure workable solutions are being promoted and to create end-to-end solutions.
- Support commercial teams and contribute towards commercial estimates on AP solution designs.
- Own technical delivery and architecture design on key AP projects, with the ability to deep dive into the technical inquiries on proposed solutions, while also working within agreed commercial parameters.
- Provide the link between the implementation teams and the Cloud Strategist and wider Enterprise Architecture team, ensuring the proposed cloud infrastructure provides a solid foundation for the solution being provided.
- Produce systems architecture and design documentation to agreed HSO standards.
- Provide the link between the customer team, HSO implementation teams, HSO technical teams and Microsoft.
- Ensure that all Microsoft Certifications and Accreditations required to fulfil this Role within HSO are met as determined by you and the Team Lead.
- To understand the HSO project delivery methodology and apply this implementation approach to all HSO Projects.
- To work closely with project teams and act as a point of reference/escalation during the implementation of a Cloud solution, particularly through go-live advising/improving on the scalability and performance of the solution.
- To act as a point of reference/escalation for HSO support teams once a cloud solution has been implemented.
- Acts as a Technical lead and mentor colleagues to share knowledge
Requirements
Essential Behaviours
- Demonstrates care with every interaction.
- Demonstrates a sense of ownership, autonomy, and personal responsibility in work execution.
- Self-driven and capable of working independently while aligning actions with high-level goals; seek support and collaboration when necessary.
- Strong affinity for Microsoft Power platform and good overall appreciation of other Azure technologies like AIS, Data & AI and Microsoft 365.
- Excellent client-facing skills; empathy and adeptness in guiding clients through complex challenges.
- Analytical, planning, and process-oriented approach with a focus on meeting deadlines and delivering quality results.
- Excellent presentation and demonstration skills.
- Project Management awareness.
- Good written and verbal communication skills.
- Uses relevant business acumen to make informed choices.
- Ability to work in an entrepreneurial business.
- Lateral thinker, who will actively listen and contribute to broader topics.
Key Responsibilities
As a Power Platform Solution Architect, you will:
· Be a technical generalist in your area of expertise serving as the technical leader in client-facing engagements.
· Take responsibility for the delivery of technical capabilities to clients at the project level across multiple deliverables, solutions, or workstreams.
· Serve as the most or one of the most senior technical consultants to one or several clients at any given time, facilitating discovery and delivering in-depth technical expertise with the client or prospect, and leading organizations through Microsoft cloud adoption best practices.
· Facilitate client-facing consulting services such as cloud assessments, workshops, and co-design sessions
Own the Cloud Adoption Platform (Power Platform, Azure, or Microsoft 365) portion of joint engagements across other HSO service lines (e.g., Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement, Unified Operations, Data and Analytics, etc.)
· Architect solutions across a range of Microsoft cloud technologies—including, with assistance, those that are not your core expertise—and provide design guidance to Lead, Senior, and other more junior consultants.
· Provide the project teams with proper guidelines for development standards, execution plans, disaster recovery, performance optimization and integrations.
· Ensure project team understands the technical architecture of the project and adheres to proper development and execution of the plan (code review, code QA, security review, deployment plan review, integration review)
· Ensure a formal process is in place for testing and issues resolution, specifically around the technical architecture and integration points of the implementation
· Take responsibility for risk assessment, solution presentation, AS-IS & TO BE processes, sizing and topology finalization, defining solution quality, defining technical quality criteria, etc.
· Further develop and maintain your own technical expertise, share that expertise with your colleagues as a mentor or producer of best practices and intellectual property, provide technical and thought leadership in chosen technical areas, and create knowledge capital that can be leveraged to accelerate project delivery, improve quality and to secure new engagements
· Provide technical pre-sales support to HSO sellers and their clients when needed (e.g. technical presentations to clients, development and presentation of demos, preparation of design and proposal documentation, etc.); note this is not the primary job function, and pre-sales assignments will be made based on technical expertise required by the pursuit
Experience and Skills
Essential
· A strong sense of ownership, autonomy, and personal responsibility for your work
· The drive and self-sufficiency to work independently, translate goals into action, own the success of your area of work, support and seek support from colleagues when needed
· A passion for Microsoft cloud technologies including Power Platform, Azure, and Microsoft 365
· Strong client-facing skills, empathy, and ability to guide clients through challenging problems
· 5+ years of technical and architecting experience working with Microsoft Cloud and related technologies such as Power Platform and Dynamics 365 CE, Azure, and Microsoft 365.
· 5+ years of experience in consulting or customer settings delivering Power Platform or Dynamics 365 CE, Azure, or Microsoft 365 application, integration, and / or infrastructure solutions
· Direct experience designing, building, and delivering Microsoft Dataverse solutions including, but not limited to, forms, workflows, business rules, record security, business process flows Ability to translate requirements into technical architecture for the solution that is scalable, flexible and complies with industry standards
· Experience in customer-facing consulting roles interacting with IT-leaders, product owners, and business users
·Experience leading teams of brilliant, passionate, and culturally diverse technologists
Location
This is a hybrid role and can be based either from our Reading, Glasgow or Manchester offices, or home. Please expect a large amount of planned travel which will involve overnight stays near customers, our offices and other UK locations for meetings, events and training.
Benefits
Parking and close to Public transport at Office locations
Holidays
Pension
Healthcare
Dental
Life Insurance
Tonic Wellbeing
HSO Perkz
Culture and many more
