About this role
<b>Overview</b><br><div><p>Microsoft Federal delivers a single unified organization centered around our customer. This organization is a first-of-its-kind for Microsoft, bringing together expertise, knowledge, and insights across our teams. All critical customer functions are brought under the same organizational umbrella, bringing the breadth and depth of our expertise into laser focus on serving the U.S. Federal Government. </p></div><div><p>We are committed to empowering our teams, building upon our strategic investments, and delivering the technology to achieve federal missions. As our customers pursue their work, from defending the nation, to serving its people in challenging times, they look to Microsoft to help them innovate, and they expect end-to-end engagement tailored to their needs. </p></div><div><p>We aspire to:<br>• Deliver the best technology to enable mission-critical work <br>• Support fast-paced innovation with the U.S Federal Government <br>• Drive focused, thoughtful, end-to-end delivery tailored to unique customer needs <br>• Continuously advance security processes within our long-standing engagement approach <br>• Develop products with inclusivity and accessibility at the core </p></div><div><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>Travel is an integral part of this position. </strong>You should be willing to travel as is demanded by the needs of our customers and our business. This position requires approximately <strong>50%</strong> overnight travel his position may require up to <strong>75%</strong> overnight travel if you are not within commuting distance to work. <strong> </strong></p><p><strong><br></strong>Microsoft is on a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, and security, data protection, and privacy are vital pillars in our mission. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging our diverse teams and leaders to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world. You can help us to achieve our mission. </p></div><div> </div><br><br><b>Responsibilities</b><br><div><p><strong>What Joining the Microsoft Team Means </strong></p><p>Microsoft continues to invest over $20B over the next 5 years in cybersecurity, including providing our customers with services and solutions that integrate across the ecosystem by connecting all your identities, endpoints, apps, emails, docs and clouds to help you close critical gaps in coverage, reduce risk, and save costs with a streamlined security portfolio. </p><div><p><strong>Customer Success</strong>: Microsoft aspires to help our customers achieve their own digital transformation, leveraging the power of Microsoft Cloud solutions and support offerings. To this end, Microsoft invests in a dedicated Customer Success team that will help Microsoft customers successfully realize their business outcomes. </p></div><div><p><strong>Security Solution Area</strong>: Microsoft aspires to help our customers achieve their secure digital transformation, leveraging the power of Microsoft Cloud security solutions and support offerings. </p></div><div><p> </p><p><strong>Cybersecurity Cloud Solution Architect (CSA) – Exercise Platform and Integration Architect<br></strong>We are seeking a versatile technical architect to join the Cyber Exercises Infrastructure cell within Microsoft Federal’s Security Customer Success Unit. This role designs, builds, integrates, and sustains the cloud and hybrid platforms required to deliver immersive cybersecurity exercises for U.S. Federal and Defense customers. The architect translates exercise and training requirements into working technical solutions spanning infrastructure, security products, automation, deployment tooling, APIs, and supporting services. </p><div><p>The Infrastructure cell develops and maintains the technical foundation required to deliver scalable, repeatable, and operationally realistic cyber exercises. This includes designing reusable range architectures, baseline environment templates, identity and access models, telemetry pipelines, and operational guardrails that support both adversary simulation and defender workflows. The team also leads environment readiness validation and post-exercise sustainment, including updates, hardening, and continuous improvements to performance and reliability. </p></div><div><p>The Exercise Platform and Integration Architect contributes to the design, deployment, configuration, and integration of exercise environments using Infrastructure as Code (IaC), CI/CD pipelines, APIs, scripting, and automation. Responsibilities may include provisioning Azure and hybrid resources, implementing identity and security configurations, integrating Microsoft and third-party security products, establishing logging and monitoring pipelines, developing automated deployment and configuration processes, and creating supporting infrastructure for adversary simulation and defender operations. </p></div><div><p>Cyber exercises are dynamic, live environments where infrastructure must adapt to evolving adversary actions and participant behavior. The Infrastructure Engineer plays a critical role in ensuring environments remain stable, secure, and fully operational to support mission objectives across civilian, Department of Defense, and Intelligence Community customers. </p></div><div><p>This is a hands-on, execution-focused role for candidates with a strong engineering foundation, technical adaptability, and the ability to solve complex problems independently. Exercise requirements frequently span multiple technologies or fall outside established implementation patterns. The architect must be comfortable researching unfamiliar technologies, developing and testing solutions, troubleshooting integration issues, and carrying an engineering problem from initial requirement through implementation and sustainment.</p></div></div><div> </div></div><br><br><b>Qualifications</b><br><div><div>Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, Liberal Arts, or related field OR equivalent experience</div><div> </div><div>2+ years of experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, information technology (IT) consulting/support, systems administration, network operations, software development/support, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting OR equivalent experience</div></div><div><div><p> </p><p><strong>Other Requirements <br></strong><strong>Security Clearance Requirements:<br></strong>Candidates must be able to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role.<br>These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings:<br>•The successful candidate must have an active U.S. Government <strong>Top Secret/SCI</strong> Security Clearance.<br>Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role.<br>Failure to maintain or obtain the appropriate clearance and/or customer screening requirements may result in employment action up to and including termination.</p></div><div><div>• <strong>Clearance Verification:</strong></div><div>This position requires successful verification of the stated security clearance to meet federal government customer requirements.</div><div>You will be asked to provide clearance verification information prior to an offer of employment.</div><div> </div><div>• <strong>Microsoft Cloud Background Check</strong>:</div><div>This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.</div><div> </div><div>• <strong>Citizenship & Citizenship Verification</strong>:</div><div>This position requires verification of U.S. citizenship due to citizenship-based legal restrictions.</div><div>Specifically, this position supports United States federal, state, and/or local United States government agency customer and is subject to certain</div><div>citizenship-based restrictions where required or permitted by applicable law.</div><div>To meet this legal requirement, citizenship will be verified via a valid passport, or other approved documents, or verified US government Clearance</div><div> </div><div><p><strong>Additional or Preferred Qualifications<br></strong>Experience in any of the below or willingness to learn<br>Cloud Infrastructure & Range Engineering: <br>Experience deploying and managing Azure resources including virtual machines, virtual networking, storage accounts, and identity services <br>Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools such as Terraform, Bicep, ARM templates, or Ansible for automated environment provisioning <br>Experience with Azure tenant provisioning, subscription management, and resource governance within managed or enterprise environments <br>Understanding of hybrid identity concepts including Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD), Active Directory, and tenant isolation models <br>Familiarity with containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes) for modular range component deployment </p><div><div><p>Security Tooling & Telemetry Configuration: <br>Familiarity with Microsoft Sentinel, including workspace configuration, log ingestion, data connectors <br>Exposure to Microsoft Defender XDR suite (Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Identity, Defender for Office 365) <br>Basic proficiency in Kusto Query Language (KQL) for log analysis and telemetry validation <br>Experience configuring logging pipelines, diagnostic settings, and monitoring in cloud environments <br>Understanding of how telemetry supports detection, analysis, and validation across red and blue team workflows </p></div><div><p>Scripting & Automation: <br>Proficiency in at least one scripting language (PowerShell, Python, or Bash) for automation and operational tasks <br>Experience automating deployment, configuration management, or environment lifecycle tasks <br>Familiarity with version control systems (Git) and CI/CD pipeline concepts <br>Ability to write and maintain scripts that reduce manual effort and improve deployment consistency <strong> </strong></p></div></div></div></div></div> <br><br><p>Cloud Solution Architecture IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $86,100 - $169,800 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $113,300 - $187,400 per year. </p><p></p> <p>Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:<br><a href="https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay">https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay</a></p><br><p>This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.</p><br><hr><br><p>Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. 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 with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about <a href="https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html"><b><u>requesting accommodations.</u></b></a></p>