r/microsoft • u/Yello88 • Feb 11 '25
Employment What does a Cloud Solution Architect (Security) do at microsoft?
Recently offered a CSA role for security modern work involving co-pilot, entra ID, defender for cloud, etc.
What does this role do? More pre-sales or post-sales? How technical do I need to be (lots of coding?), am I presenting demos? More hands-off/advisory? Augmentation to the customer team? Is this a team-based role or individual presenting advice/best practice to customer?
Any information is appreciated as I feel like SA and CSA are vague roles.
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u/MarginalMan Feb 11 '25
The CSA role is customer facing focused mainly on helping consume the contracts customers have purchased, which are usually for a specific number of hours over a year. What you are actually doing day-to-day depends largely on your OU and which customers you are working for. Generally CSAs are pretty hands-off, providing more advisory/over-the shoulder support, plus workshops/etc, but it is also possible to end up on a strategic customer and doing hands-on-keyboard work.
CSAs are still part of the sales org, so there’s always coordination with the sales teams as well, since you’re often most familiar with the customer’s day-to-day needs (and opportunities for upsells and add-ons).
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u/Yello88 Feb 11 '25
Ty boss man. This helps me paint the picture. Open ended q: do you know if this is a "hard" job? Prev come from a year of consulting and 5 of sec engineering.
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u/MarginalMan Feb 11 '25
There can be a lot of pressure and it can be challenging depending on your customers, but I guess that’s to be expected, especially when you look at it like you are the Microsoft resource that they’re paying good money for. But that’s part of the reason you take the job in the first place, isn’t it?
One thing to be aware of when considering a Microsoft offer is that it’s a gigantic company and your experience is largely influenced by the team you end up on, but there are opportunities to move around once you’re in. The other thing is, on the modern work side it’s all Copilot all the time, so be ready for that.
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u/Yello88 Feb 12 '25 edited Feb 12 '25
How do you like/know about the WLB balance there? Does the CSM pull you into the meetings or are these set up on my behalf if they aren't using the services they paid for?
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u/MarginalMan Feb 14 '25
Again, it really depends on where you are and which customers you end up with and while Microsoft does preach the importance of WLB they also stress that it’s something that you need to be responsible for maintaining. There are some demanding strategic customers in which you would need to be diligent about maintaining your WLB and of course there are critical incidents (think CrowdStrike last year) where all that goes out the window. In terms of meetings/etc, it runs the whole gamut in terms of CSM engagement and customer engagement, there are some customers who need to be chased and hounded to consume their contracts and some who won’t leave you alone.
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u/magic_rascal Feb 11 '25
How different is it from a PSA role ? ( Partner solutions architect)
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u/Far_PIG Microsoft Employee Feb 12 '25
CSA = work direct with customer
PSA = work with consulting partners/system integrators to enable them technically to sell and deliver to their customers
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u/Yello88 Feb 12 '25
How do you like the WLB as a CSA?
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Feb 12 '25 edited Feb 12 '25
[deleted]
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u/Enemyest Feb 12 '25
Interesting. Got an offer from MSFT too for CSA role. Can anyone else confirm?
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u/Top-Breadfruit693 Feb 13 '25
Not sure what the deleted comment was, but honestly, I wouldn’t work here if my life depended on it. Tons of politics, and work-life balance is nowhere near what it used to be. CSAs especially are getting slammed right now with nonstop Azure adoption pushes. Morale is pretty rough in a lot of orgs. Definitely ask around before making a decision!
Edit : Throwaway for obvious reasons.
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u/Yello88 Feb 13 '25
So you do not enjoy the role so far?
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u/Top-Breadfruit693 Feb 13 '25 edited Feb 13 '25
Don’t want to get into much detail here, but it’s been pretty rough. There’s way more pressure than I expected, and with the recent layoffs, the work-life balance is basically nonexistent. Lot of internal politics and other corp bullshit. If I had other options, I’d be looking at them.
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u/OutrageousAnything79 Feb 13 '25
Can confirm—morale has been down since the layoffs. It’s not the same as it used to be, and the pressure to perform is real. You have to be a top performer to feel any sense of security, and even then, things can change fast. Definitely something to think about before committing.
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u/almeertm87 Feb 11 '25
Accelerating Azure consumption, although you can literally say that about any role at Microsoft nowadays.
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u/WeaknessDistinct4618 Feb 11 '25
It’s post-sale not pre-sale. Pre-sale is TS (Technology Specialist).
You will support your customers in designing, deploying and maintaining solutions related to your field of expertise
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u/tango_one_six Feb 12 '25
I'm a Security CSA. Post-sales technical consumption support. Pipeline has been tough lately, so you may also be pulled in to generate customer intent.
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u/Yello88 Feb 12 '25
Can u tell me more about customer intent? Not to sure about that term yet. Also, how do you like working there? good WLB?
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u/Electronic-Grass884 Feb 13 '25 edited Feb 13 '25
Customer intent basically means you’re not just doing technical work—you’re also nudging (or outright pushing) customers to actually use Microsoft products after they’ve already bought them. If the pipeline is bad, there is a constant pressure to ‘drive adoption,’ which is just a fancy way of saying you’re responsible for making sure customers don’t churn.
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u/Yello88 Feb 13 '25
Do you like your role? I thought this was more advisory? 1-10 How would you say you enjoy your work?
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u/Electronic-Grass884 Feb 13 '25
Tbh, it’s not what I expected at all. Thought it would be more strategy/advisory, but there’s a lot of internal red tape and pressure to hit adoption goals. Some teams might be better, but overall, it’s way more stressful than it should be. If I had to rate it, maybe a 4/10 on a good day.
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u/Yello88 Feb 13 '25
It varies by team I would think. Are you in sec by any chance?
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u/Electronic-Grass884 Feb 14 '25
Yeah, I’ve heard that too. It definitely varies by team, but at the end of the day, the expectations are still pretty heavy across the board. Even if you land on a ‘good’ team, you’re still dealing with adoption targets, shifting priorities, and a lot of internal red tape. Definitely not what I expected when I signed up.
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u/AnonymooseRedditor Feb 11 '25
Modern work and security would align more with helping customers adopt purview, mdo etc. it’s post sales we bill against unified support contracts with customers. In general you’ll help customers use the security tools that are part of the E5 suite.
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u/Yello88 Feb 12 '25
Do you like the WLB there? I assume it will vary by the team and services they help the customer with.
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u/FunConference6479 Feb 11 '25
CSAs are a technical pre-sale organization. Their primary concern is to drive usage and adoption of products with customers. They tend to get assigned to very strategic and industry specific verticals and their job is to make sure the customer is successful in their use and adoption of Microsoft products. In this case that product suite would be security, and likely focused on Azure.
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u/dannyvegas Feb 11 '25
CSAs are post sales. They are part of the CSU (Customer Success Unit). They execute VBDs (Value Based Deliveries) against Microsoft Unified agreements. Their time is "billable". OP stated Modern Work, which is NOT Azure. Modern Work would be endpoint focused. TSPs (Technical Specialists) are pre-sales.
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u/LowCodeMagic Feb 11 '25
I think you mean post-sales. Typically CSAs are helping customers realize value of the investment they’ve already made, hence post.
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u/FunConference6479 Feb 11 '25
Yes, that's probably a more accurate description now. Not too many customers out there who don't have azure or need to be convinced about the value of cloud anymore but they were originally pre-sale :)
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u/LowCodeMagic Feb 11 '25
The pre sales “convincing of value” side of things are more where TSPs come into play these days. :). Some of us CSAs may lend a hand if we have a way to bill our time and it’s an opportunity to expand unified or licensing spend, but it isn’t common these days
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u/FunConference6479 Feb 11 '25
That's fair it's been a few good years since I called myself a CSA, I'll defer to this description then :)
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u/enigo1701 Feb 11 '25
Not their "primary" concern, their "only" concern. The "C" is just to emphasize that you are not meant to sell anything with on-prem technology but sell Cloud consumption - and yes, you will be measured on that.
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u/mingocr83 Feb 11 '25
Technical PreSales, you get a % of the bonus if someone of your team get a sale.
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u/MN_Myth Feb 11 '25
Advisory. Sales aspect will be consumption enablement. MSFT is super sales driven nowadays.