Here is an overview of the different Microsoft career paths and what every different role implies in terms of roles and responsibilities.
The Microsoft Career Paths
Administrator
Administrators oversee the implementation of Microsoft platforms and maintain solutions for storage, networking, computing and security.
Responsibilities and skills include:
- Managing subscriptions and resources
- Implementing and managing storage
- Deploying and managing virtual machines
- Configuring and managing virtual networks
- Managing identities
AI Engineer
AI engineers design and implement artificial intelligence solutions by leveraging different MS tools.
Cognitive Services, Machine Learning, and Knowledge Mining are part of their toolset. For Azure, for example, areas of focus include:
- Natural language processing
- Speech
- Bots and agents
- Computer vision
Data Engineer
In charge of mapping out and executing the management, monitoring, security, and privacy of data. Data Engineers are proficient in a platform’s different data services and tools, using them to:
- Implement data storage solutions
- Manage and develop data processing
- Monitor and optimize data solutions
- Design data storage solutions
- Design data processing solutions
- Design for data security and compliance
Data Scientist
Not to be confused with a Data Engineer, this role requires deep knowledge of data science and machine learning. Expertise in data modelling is a must.
A good MS Data Scientist knows well how to:
- Set up data lake relationships
- Learning workspace
- Run experiments and train models
- Optimize and manage models
- Deploy and consume models
Developer
At the frontlines of deployment and operations, developers partner with architects and administrators to design, create, test and maintain cloud applications and services.
Among the core competences of developers:
- Development of infrastructure and storage
- Development of platforms and solutions
- Implementation of security
- Monitoring, troubleshooting, and optimising solutions
- Connecting to third-party services
DevOps Engineer
Advocates of agile methodologies for software development, DevOps professionals unify teams, processes and technologies to streamline the product pipeline.
Expertise is required in:
- DevOps development processes
- Continuous integration & continuous delivery (CI/CD)
- Dependency management
- Application infrastructure
- Continuous feedback
IoT Developer
Designs, develops and maintains Internet of Things solutions and devices within MS environments. From coding to the set-up of physical devices, the IoT Developer is responsible for:
- Implementing the Azure IoT solution infrastructure
- Provision and management of devices
- Implementing Edge Processing and managing data
- Monitoring, troubleshooting, and optimising IoT solutions
- Implementing security
Security Engineer
The title here says it all. Security professionals protect the integrity of data, applications and networks by implementing threat detection and security controls.
Functions include:
- Managing identity and access
- Implementing platform protection
- Managing security operations
- Securing data and applications
Solutions Architect
The Solutions Architect is actually the first person to be involved in a platform’s deployment process. Architects must have a deep understanding of the entire ecosystem to design solutions that run on it.
They must have expertise in:
- Deployment and configuration of infrastructure
- Implementing workloads and security
- Creating and deploy apps
- Implementing authentication and securing data
- Developing for cloud and for other storage
- Determining workload requirements
- Designing for identity and security
- Designing a data platform solution and a business continuity strategy
- Designing for deployment, migration, and integration
- Designing an infrastructure strategy
Want to learn more about the various Microsoft career paths and how to pursue them? Explore our comprehensive Microsoft Technologies careers guide.
