Overview Microsoft Industry Solutions - Global Center Innovation and Delivery Center GCID delivers end-to-end solutions by enabling accelerated adoption and productive use of Microsoft technologies An organization of well over 1000 exceptional people GCID presents a great opportunity for highly skilled services professionals to make a foray into consulting solution development and delivery roles The Principal Consultant is a senior leader responsible for the successful technical execution and delivery of complex client projects across diverse domains This role acts as a strategic anchor between clients architects delivery managers project managers and delivery teams In the AI-first GCID organization Principal Consultants are expected to embed AI-native thinking into delivery models ensuring solutions are intelligent scalable and aligned with business outcomes The ideal candidate is passionate about technology demonstrates breadth of expertise and advocates for solutions that deliver true client value Responsibilities AI-First Delivery Leadership Embed AI-first principles into delivery workflows leveraging automation and intelligent orchestration where applicable Lead end-to-end delivery of complex projects ensuring solutions are scalable robust and aligned with client business outcomes Drive engineering excellence through reusable components accelerators and scalable architecture Oversee technical execution across multiple projects ensuring adherence to best practices quality standards and compliance requirements Collaborate with clients and internal stakeholders to define strategies delivery plans milestones and risk mitigation approaches Act as a technical point of contact for clients translating business requirements into scalable technical solutions Ensure delivery models are optimized for modern AI-native execution including integration of automation and intelligent processes Ability to step into at risk projects quickly assess issues and establish a credible path to recovery or exit Engineering Excellence Champion high-quality engineering practices across all delivery engagements Ensure adherence to coding standards architectural integrity and performance benchmarks Define and institutionalize engineering guardrails that embed secure coding test driven development observability and performance best practices by default Encourage continuous learning and technical certifications to maintain cutting-edge expertise Drive adoption of modern delivery methodologies Agile DevOps CI CD to ensure robust and scalable solutions Foster a culture of technical rigor innovation and accountability within the team Innovation Thought Leadership Use design thinking to shape user centric solutions aligning business goals architecture decisions and delivery execution Monitor and evaluate emerging technologies to inform strategic direction Lead innovation in delivery models reusable assets and accelerators to enhance efficiency and impact Champion modern thinking and best practices across teams and engagements to foster a culture of continuous improvement Client Engagement Solutioning Engage with clients to understand business needs and provide expert guidance throughout the project lifecycle Support pre-sales and solutioning efforts with estimations proof-of-concepts and technical proposals Build and maintain strong client relationships ensuring high levels of satisfaction and value delivery Partner with client leadership to drive the cultural shift required for AI-native operations moving beyond technical implementation to user adoption and workflow transformation Team Management Mentorship Lead and mentor cross-functional teams fostering a culture of learning collaboration and technical excellence Conduct reviews provide feedback and support professional development of team members Quality Compliance Ensure secure compliant and reliable solution delivery through secure coding test driven development observability design reviews and quality gates across all engagements Strategic Partnering Serve as a strategic partner for internal and external stakeholders on key initiatives Provide strategic guidance and execution oversight to ensure alignment with organizational goals Define and track specific Business KPIs e g revenue uplift operational cost reduction customer CSAT improvement associated with AI initiatives Qualifications20 years of experience in software solution engineering with at least 3-5 years in delivery leadership roles Proven experience in leading delivery of complex multi-disciplinary projects Strong understanding of modern delivery methodologies Agile Scrum DevOps etc Excellent communication stakeholder management problem-solving and team leadership skills Bachelor s degree in computer science Engineering or related field or equivalent experience Relevant certifications are a plus Areas of Expertise Enterprise Data Architecture Modern Platforms Lead enterprise data modernization initiatives in close collaboration with Enterprise and Solution Architects spanning architecture assessment target state design hands on implementation and optimization Co define architectures with Architects where metadata lineage classification and data discovery are first class capabilities enabling governed trusted analytics and AI consumption at scale Drive and influence architectural decisions for modern data platforms providing hands on delivery leadership across Microsoft Fabric OneLake Warehouse Lakehouse Event streams Real Time Intelligence Microsoft Purview Azure Synapse Analytics Azure Data Factory and partner platforms such as Snowflake and Teradata Partner with Architects on workload characterization setting separation capacity planning and SKU sizing balancing performance scalability resilience and total cost of ownership Share accountability with Architects for production architectures owning performance outcomes operational stability and long term sustainability through continuous optimization and issue resolution Data Engineering Large Scale Data Processing Handson leadership in designing building and operating largescale batch and streaming data pipelines using Apache Spark Databricks Kafka Hadoop Hive and HDInsight Own data engineering standards SLAs SLOs and performance baselines while actively implementing and reviewing critical pipelines Lead and perform pipeline performance assessments and tuning including compute sizing partition strategies memory optimization shuffle reduction and concurrency management Accountable for ensuring pipelines meet throughput latency and reliability targets in production environments Drive DataOps practices with direct involvement in monitoring alerting capacity scaling and continuous optimization Database Platforms Performance Capacity Engineering Handson expertise across Azure SQL SQL Server PostgreSQL MySQL MariaDB Oracle Teradata Netezza Cosmos DB and columnar analytics engines Lead and execute database performance assessments capacity planning and workload sizing for transactional analytical and AI workloads Perform query tuning execution plan analysis indexing strategy design wait state analysis e g CXPACKET and storage I O optimization Accountable for delivering predictable scalable and cost-efficient database performance in production RealTime Analytics Operational Intelligence Own the design and hands-on implementation of real-time analytics platforms using Microsoft Fabric RealTime Intelligence Implement and tune Event streams KQL databases real-time dashboards and ingestion pipelines to meet low latency and high throughput requirements Take accountability for real-time workload sizing Fabric capacity selection ingestion rate planning query concurrency and retention strategies Lead troubleshooting and optimization of production RTI workloads balancing SLA targets with cost efficiency Ensure real-time and historical datasets are unified in OneLake and ready for analytics and AI consumption AI First Data Engineering Unify Your Data Hands on ownership of AI first data engineering solutions turning raw data into analytics ready and AI ready assets Design and implement agentic AI workflows that assist in data discovery preparation profiling validation and performance optimization Actively use large language models to automate data engineering tasks such as schema inference pipeline generation metadata enrichment documentation and tuning recommendations Implement AI powered data wrangling solutions while maintaining governance explainability and human in the loop controls Accountable for operationalizing autonomous assisted data platforms in real customer environments Lead the use of AI assistants agents to quickly build and improve data pipelines This includes automating tasks like generating code for data processing creating tests for quality and helping to move data from older systems to newer platforms like Microsoft Fabric The focus is on enabling teams to deliver faster and more reliably AI Advanced Analytics Enablement Own the hands-on integration of AI and ML workloads into data platforms including performance tuning and cost optimization Design implement and optimize solutions using AI Agents where viable using Azure Machine Learning Azure OpenAI and Azure AI Services including RAG pipelines and inference workloads Ensure AI and analytics solutions are grounded in Purview managed metadata and Business Glossary context improving trust explainability and relevance of AI outputs Apply Responsible AI principles by leveraging Purview classification lineage and sensitivity labels to control data access usage and model inputs in production AI systems Tune AI systems for retrieval latency inference performance concurrency and cost using telemetry and real usage patterns Embed observability monitoring drift detection and performance metrics into production AI systems Ensure Responsible AI principles are applied practically in live solutions Design and model cost-efficient AI architectures balancing performance latency against consumption costs e g Token optimization SKU selection Provisioned vs Pay-as-you-go Implement FinOps governance for AI establishing budget guardrails chargeback models and ROI forecasting for high-consumption workloads Data Governance Trust Operating Models Own the hands-on implementation of enterprise data governance using Microsoft Purview including data cataloging lineage tracking classification sensitivity labeling and access policy enforcement Lead the definition rollout and governance of an enterprise Business Glossary establishing shared business definitions ownership models stewardship workflows and lifecycle management Ensure Business Glossary terms are mapped to physical data assets tables columns streams and semantic models to bridge business and technical understanding across the organization Enable business friendly data discovery by integrating Purview Catalog lineage views and glossary context into analytics Fabric workloads and AI solutions Balance governance performance and usability by implementing governance by default patterns that scale self-service access without introducing friction Support data mesh and domain-oriented ownership models using Purview as the central control plane for federated governance standards and policy enforcement Industry Multi-Cloud Experience Handson delivery ownership across industries including financial services healthcare manufacturing retail supply chain energy transportation public sector and media Primary depth on Azure with practical implementation experience on AWS and Google Cloud Solutioning Pre-Sales Technical Leadership Lead technical solutioning estimations and support architecture design during pre-sales and delivery shaping Translate business outcomes into clear architecture execution plans and risk mitigation strategies Influence technical direction across multiple teams and engagements Act as a trusted advisor to clients and internal leadership Frontier Engineering Customer Enablement Skills Lead rapid prototyping pilots and early-stage deployments for enterprise customers Ability to go from whiteboard to production with minimal friction Strong troubleshooting and production support expertise including performance reliability and security issues Side by side coding with customer engineering teams to unblock deployments and accelerate time to value Outcome driven engineering focused on business impact not activity Building reusable assets accelerators and reference implementations Comfortable operating in ambiguous high-pressure environments with senior customer stakeholders Certifications Preferred Two or more of the following Microsoft Certified Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate DP 600 Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect Expert AZ 305 Microsoft Certified Azure AI Engineer Associate AI 102 Nice to have Microsoft Certified Information Protection and Compliance Administrator Associate SC400 Microsoft Certified Azure Machine Learning Engineer Associate DP100 Microsoft Certified DevOps Engineer Expert AZ400 Confluent Certified Developer for Apache Kafka CCDAK Databricks Data Engineer Associate Professional Certified Kubernetes Application Developer CKAD Microsoft Certified Security Compliance and Identity Fundamentals SC 900 GitHub Certified GitHub Copilot Professional GHCP GH 300 Personal Attributes Passion for technology and innovation Ability to interact confidently with senior leaders and clients Strong decision-making skills and a consultative mindset Flexibility to manage a fast-moving ambiguous consulting environment Commitment to continuous learning and professional growth Other Embody our culture and values This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled 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

📌 Principal Consultant- Data & Ai (Telangana)
🏢 Microsoft
📍 Telangana