The Intelligence Presales Solution Architect serves as the primary technical authority for ZainTECH’s Intelligent pillar, with a deep specialization in the Microsoft AI and Data platform. This role is responsible for designing solution architectures, leading technical discovery, building proofs of concept, developing technical proposals, and supporting deal progression from qualification through close – working in close partnership with overlay sales specialists, account managers, and delivery teams.
The ideal candidate combines hands-on expertise across Microsoft’s AI and Data stack (Azure AI Services, Azure Machine Learning, Azure AI Foundry, Microsoft Fabric, Azure OpenAI Service, Copilot Studio, Power Platform) with the consultative ability to translate business requirements into credible, deployable solution designs. They will be the technical voice in customer-facing engagements, responsible for building confidence that ZainTECH can deliver on the Intelligent pillar promise – from AI Readiness and Data Governance through Advanced Analytics, Generative AI, and Agentic AI.
As a secondary competency, the candidate should be able to position and support technical conversations around two Microsoft-native areas within ZainTECH’s Digital pillar: Process Automation on Power Platform (covering finance, HR, customer service, and compliance automation) and Customer & Partner Experience on SharePoint and Microsoft 365 (covering employee productivity, partner portals, and mobile-first experiences). These are natural extension points where the Microsoft AI and Data stack intersects with Digital pillar workloads.
Responsibilities:
Technical Solution Design & Architecture (Intelligent Pillar – Microsoft Focus)
- Lead technical solution design for AI and Analytics engagements across the full Intelligent pillar value chain: AI Readiness (Data Quality & Governance, Responsible AI, Organizational Readiness), Advanced Analytics & Machine Learning, Generative AI (RAG, Co-Pilots, Content Generation & Personalization), and Agentic AI (Autonomous Reasoning, Multi-Agent Orchestration, Agentic Governance).
- Architect end-to-end solutions on the Microsoft platform including Azure AI Services, Azure Machine Learning, Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Fabric (Data Factory, Data Engineering, Data Warehouse, Real-Time Intelligence, Power BI), Copilot Studio, and the Power Platform.
- Design data platform architectures leveraging Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure SQL, Cosmos DB, and Purview to support analytics-ready, governed data foundations.
- Develop generative AI solution architectures incorporating Azure OpenAI Service, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) patterns, prompt engineering, fine-tuning strategies, and embedding-based retrieval using Azure AI Search and vector stores.
- Design agentic AI architectures using Copilot Studio, Semantic Kernel, AutoGen, and multi-agent orchestration patterns with appropriate human-in-the-loop governance and safety controls.
- Produce technical solution documentation including architecture diagrams, solution design documents, bills of material, sizing estimates, and implementation roadmaps for customer proposals and RFP responses.
- Define non-functional requirements (scalability, security, performance, compliance) and incorporate them into solution architectures aligned with Microsoft Well-Architected Framework principles.
Customer-Facing Technical Engagement
- Lead technical discovery workshops with customer IT, data, and business teams to assess current-state architecture, data maturity, technology landscape, and AI readiness.
- Conduct solution presentations, architecture walkthroughs, and whiteboarding sessions with CTOs, CIOs, Chief Data Officers, Heads of AI, and enterprise architects to validate proposed designs and build technical confidence.
- Design, build, and deliver proofs of concept (PoCs) and proofs of value (PoVs) that demonstrate tangible outcomes – such as a working RAG pipeline, a predictive analytics model on customer data, or an automated workflow using Copilot Studio – to de-risk the buying decision, when necessary.
- Support the AI Sales Overlay Specialist and account teams by providing technical depth during stakeholder conversations, helping quantify the technical effort and translating customer pain into architecture requirements.
- Deliver executive technical briefings and AI Readiness assessments that provide customers with actionable findings on their data governance posture, platform landscape, and AI adoption roadmap.
Presales Process & Deal Support
- Own the technical win strategy for AI/Analytics opportunities, defining the proof points, demonstrations, and reference architectures needed to secure technical selection.
- Develop scope definition, resource plans, and pricing inputs for professional services proposals in coordination with delivery and PMO teams.
- Author technical sections of proposals and RFP/RFI responses, ensuring accuracy, feasibility, and differentiation of the proposed Microsoft-based solution.
- Build and maintain a library of reusable solution assets including reference architectures, PoC accelerators, demo environments, and technical battle cards for the Intelligent pillar on Microsoft.
- Participate in deal reviews and architecture review boards to ensure solution quality, deliverability, and margin protection.
Process Automation on Microsoft Power Platform
- Design and demonstrate process automation solutions using Microsoft Power Platform (Power Automate, Power Apps, Power Pages) and AI Builder, addressing use cases across Finance & Accounting Automation (invoice processing, reconciliation, expense management, month-end close acceleration), HR Optimization (digital onboarding workflows, HR virtual assistants, automated offboarding), and Intelligent Customer Service Operations (omnichannel routing, agent assist, AI-driven case deflection).
- Architect end-to-end automation workflows that combine Power Automate cloud and desktop flows with Dataverse, Copilot Studio, and Azure AI Services to deliver intelligent process automation (IPA) that goes beyond simple RPA – incorporating document intelligence, natural language understanding, and decision automation.
- Support presales engagements for Automated Compliance & Governance scenarios, designing solutions that leverage Power Platform, Microsoft Purview, and SharePoint to enforce policy workflows, audit trails, and regulatory controls.
- Identify and articulate the natural progression from process automation to AI – for example, surfacing data quality issues during a finance automation engagement that create demand for an AI Readiness or Data Governance workload, or embedding predictive models into an automated supply chain workflow.
Customer & Partner Experience on SharePoint and Microsoft 365
- Design modern intranet, employee productivity, and knowledge management solutions on SharePoint Online and Microsoft Viva, addressing pain points around information fragmentation, context switching, disconnected hybrid culture, and uncontrolled tool proliferation.
- Architect Partner Portal and channel collaboration solutions using SharePoint, Power Pages, and Dataverse, enabling structured deal registration, content distribution, partner enablement, and pipeline visibility for customers managing indirect sales channels.
- Design Mobile-First Experience solutions leveraging Power Apps, SharePoint, and Teams to digitize field data capture, enable mobile approvals and notifications, and extend enterprise system access to frontline and deskless workers.
- Position the natural integration between experience platforms and AI capabilities – such as embedding Copilot for Microsoft 365 into employee productivity solutions, integrating Azure AI Search into SharePoint-based knowledge portals, or layering RAG-powered chatbots on top of partner and customer content repositories.
- Collaborate with Digital pillar presales engineers on joint solution designs where Microsoft 365 and Power Platform workloads create the foundation for downstream Intelligent pillar opportunities.
Partner Ecosystem & Continuous Development
- Serve as ZainTECH’s primary technical liaison with Microsoft’s AI and Data specialist sales teams, participating in joint technical briefings, partner technical workshops, and co-sell engagements.
- Maintain deep currency with the Microsoft AI and Data platform roadmap, including new releases across Azure AI Foundry, Microsoft Fabric, Copilot Studio, and Azure OpenAI Service, and translate these into updated solution patterns and customer recommendations.
- Pursue and maintain relevant Microsoft technical certifications and contribute to ZainTECH’s Microsoft AI specialization and competency attainment.
- Mentor junior presales engineers and delivery consultants on Microsoft AI solution design patterns, architecture best practices, and customer engagement techniques.
- Contribute technical content for thought leadership purposes including architecture blogs, solution briefs, and reference implementation write-ups.
Requirements
- 8+ years of experience in presales, solution architecture, technical consulting, or hands-on delivery of data and AI solutions, with at least 4 years focused specifically on Microsoft Azure AI and Data services.
- A Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Mathematics, or a related technical discipline (mandatory).
- Deep hands-on expertise across the Microsoft AI and Data platform, specifically:
- Azure AI Services (Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Search, Document Intelligence, Speech, Vision, Language)
- Azure Machine Learning (Designer, Pipelines, MLflow integration, Managed Endpoints, Responsible AI dashboard)
- Azure AI Foundry (prompt flow, model catalog, evaluation, deployment orchestration)
- Microsoft Fabric (Data Factory, Data Engineering with Spark, Data Warehouse, Real-Time Intelligence, Power BI)
- Copilot Studio and Power Platform (Power Automate, Power Apps) for agentic and workflow-driven AI solutions
- Data governance tooling: Microsoft Purview (data catalog, lineage, classification, sensitivity labeling)
- Proven experience designing and delivering Generative AI solutions including RAG architectures, embedding pipelines, prompt engineering patterns, fine-tuning workflows, and grounding strategies using Azure AI Search or equivalent vector retrieval systems.
- Strong foundation in data engineering and analytics architecture: data lakehouse patterns, medallion architecture, ETL/ELT pipeline design, dimensional modeling, and real-time streaming.
- Hands-on proficiency in Python, SQL, PySpark, and at least one ML framework (scikit-learn, PyTorch, or TensorFlow) for building and demonstrating ML solutions.
- Experience producing presales deliverables including solution architecture documents, effort estimates, technical proposals, PoC plans, and RFP responses.
- Demonstrated ability to lead technical conversations with senior technical stakeholders (CTOs, CDOs, Enterprise Architects) and translate complex architecture into clear, outcome-focused narratives.
- Current Microsoft certifications, particularly: Azure AI Engineer Associate (AI-102), Azure Data Engineer Associate (DP-203), Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate (DP-600), or Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305). Power Platform certifications (PL-200, PL-600) are a strong plus. Multiple certifications strongly preferred.
- Experience with agentic AI frameworks and patterns including Semantic Kernel, AutoGen, LangChain, and multi-agent orchestration with human-in-the-loop governance.
- Familiarity with secondary cloud AI platforms (AWS Bedrock/SageMaker, Google Vertex AI) and cross-cloud data integration scenarios.
- Experience with Dataiku DSS platform for visual ML, MLOps, and enterprise AI governance.
- Hands-on experience with Microsoft Power Platform (Power Automate cloud and desktop flows, Power Apps canvas and model-driven apps, Power Pages, AI Builder, Dataverse) and SharePoint Online development (modern sites, SPFx, search configuration, Viva modules) for Digital pillar solution positioning.
- Experience with Responsible AI frameworks, model explainability tooling (e.g., Azure Responsible AI dashboard, Fairlearn, InterpretML), and regulatory compliance considerations for AI in MENA markets.
- Familiarity with industry-specific AI and digital use cases in Telecom, Financial Services, Government, Healthcare, Retail, or Energy sectors.
- Experience working in systems integration, professional services, or consulting organizations serving MENA markets, with understanding of regional data sovereignty requirements.
- Fluency in English (spoken and written). Arabic language proficiency is a strong advantage.