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A Microsoft Technologies Careers Guide

Learn all about Microsoft careers and the various paths one can take within the Microsoft Technologies ecosystem with this guide.


It was not that long ago that Microsoft seemed on track to take a more secondary role in the future of enterprise technology.

Software sales had been sluggish for some time, and the company seemed unable to keep up with the pace of innovation of its competitors. Well, things change quickly, especially in IT.

To the surprise of some, Microsoft has managed to bounce back in just a few years. It has indeed delivered its finest OS to date, Windows 10, created a new line of successful hardware products like the Surface. Thus it become a top contender in the cloud wars. Moreover, Microsoft is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the current situation. Being incredibly fortunate with cloud-based collaboration tools ranging from Azure and Office 365 to Microsoft Teams.

Hence, investing time and resources in pursuing one of the many Microsoft careers is a solid career bet. Here is a little roadmap that we hope helps guide you on your journey to personal and IT professional success.

Microsoft careers: a solid IT career investment

Microsoft careers: a solid career investment

The surge in remote work caused by COVID-19 has greatly helped the cloud industry. Microsoft’s Azure business keeps on growing, consolidating the company’s position as the world’s second-largest cloud provider with only Amazon ahead. In turn, the increased demand for cloud know-how has led to a severe drought of talent, especially in areas like cybersecurity. Both cloud and security are highly coveted these days.

Additionally, in a world dominated by data, business intelligence is key. Here, Microsoft also reigns supreme with tools like Microsoft Power BI — a business intelligence platform that caters to business users. As an IT professional, knowing your way around MS Power BI will make you a great asset in today’s enterprise. There will always be someone in need of an expert to set up the environment, train end-users and troubleshoot.

Finally, Microsoft’s sheer size and reach, as well as its tools and platforms focused on developers. This means that a vast amount of applications and solutions are developed using Microsoft’s technology.

Ubiquity, scalability, flexibility and endless possibilities are the words that come to mind when trying to explain what Microsoft stands for in this day and age.

In addition, the Redmond, Virginia company is almost everywhere and in everything, connecting the world economy across industries, practices and solutions.

This Microsoft careers guide connects the dots and providing a holistic perspective on the Microsoft ecosystem and the various career paths one can take within.

The Microsoft Technology Stack

Microsoft careers: The Microsoft Technology Stack

Ubiquity, productivity, scalability, flexibility. These are some of the words that come to mind when trying to explain what Microsoft stands for in this day and age. The Redmond, Virginia company is almost everywhere and in everything, connecting the world economy across industries, practices and solutions. Cloud, operating systems, repositories, collaboration tools…

But, as an IT professional, you would encompass more than enough by focusing on the company’s core solutions. Here are the principal technologies in the Microsoft Technology Stack.

The different IT career paths within Microsoft

Microsoft careers: The different career paths within Microsoft

Given the breadth and depth of Microsoft’s tech stack, the number of jobs and specialties that the environment comprises is practically impossible to capture completely and concisely at the same time. There are just too many.

However, you can identify a series of recurrent role across the various technologies. The company itself highlights these common career paths in its training programs.

Also explore our article on Microsoft career paths for an overview of the different career paths within the Microsoft ecosystem.

Developing your Microsoft expertise

Microsoft careers: Developing your Microsoft expertise

As with other proprietary families of technologies, the best way to go about learning the basics and getting a foot in the door is through official Microsoft certifications. These provide you with a solid technical foundation while validating your expertise in front of recruiters and the overall industry.

In conclusion, there is a myriad of certifications one can obtain, based on desired role or IT career path, or depending on the specific skills you would like to acquire.

Here’s a quick guide to the world of Microsoft certifications.  

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Microsoft Certifications Guide

This quick Microsoft certifications guide will provide you with a bird’s-eye view of all the company’s official trainings and thus help you advance your career.

Microsoft’s Learn portal offers a multitude of courses and Microsoft certifications for anyone to explore. Obtaining one of these certifications is therefore the first step when starting a career in the ecosystem or advancing or shifting your existing one.

Beyond providing you with theoretical and practical knowledge these certifications will validate your expertise within the industry and among recruiters. This is because, certifications demonstrate that you are up-to-date with current best practices and new tools, with some of them requiring to be renewed every year.

Courses to obtain certifications are free through the Learn platform and can be taken at your own pace from the comfort of your home. There are also several MS-vetted third-parties offering guided lessons and complementary coursework.

Students need to pay only for the practical exams, which can be taken online or at designated testing centres. Microsoft has expanded its online testing capabilities since the start of the Covid-19 crisis.


To start, there are several ways in which you can approach Microsoft training programs. You can focus on a particular platform within the Microsoft Technology Stack, or opt for a specific role and then choose a platform to focus on. You can also choose a specific career path or focus on a very concrete skill that you would like to acquire. Then, Microsoft outlines all available career paths, defining the series of certifications you will need to obtain to reach your career goal.

Certifications are divided according to the level of expertise and seniority: Fundamentals, Associate and Expert. Our Microsoft Certifications Guide will give you an overview, but you will have to dig deeper to find what really makes you tick.

Microsoft Certifications guide: Fundamentals certifications

First, as their name suggests, these certifications are the recommended starting point for anyone starting their career or looking to move into another platform within the MS tech stack. They cover:

  • Azure Fundamentals
  • Azure Data Fundamentals
  • Azure AI Fundamentals
  • Dynamics 365 Fundamentals
  • Microsoft 365 Fundamentals
  • Power Platform Fundamentals

Learn more about MS Fundamentals certifications.

Credentials

To continue, some MS certifications encompass more than one platform and require you to multiple individual certifications. Also, each of these certifications is tailored to a specific area of IT (security, networking, cloud, etc.)

Also, there are three tiers of certifications depending on the level of expertise:

  • Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA)
  • Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA)
  • Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) /Microsoft Solutions Developer (MCSD)

Learn more about MS certification credentials.

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Role-based and specialty Microsoft certifications

Certifications targeting specific roles are a great way of specializing or moving from one role to the other within the Microsoft ecosystems. Moreover, roles can comprise multiple MS platforms or focus on a particular one, and include:

Administrator

Administrators oversee the implementation of Microsoft platforms, thus maintaining solutions for storage, networking, computing and security.

AI Engineer

Then, AI engineers design and implement artificial intelligence solutions by leveraging different MS tools.

Data Engineer

Being in charge of mapping out and executing the management, monitoring, security, and privacy of data, Data Engineers are therefore proficient in a platform’s different data services and tools.

Data Scientist

Not to be confused with a Data Engineer, this role requires a deep knowledge of data science and machine learning. Moreover, expertise in data modelling is a must.

Developer

At the frontlines of deployment and operations, Developers partner with architects and administrators to design, create, test, also they maintain cloud applications and services.

DevOps Engineer

Advocates of agile methodologies for software development, DevOps professionals unify teams, processes and technologies in order to streamline the product pipeline.

Functional Consultant

Moreover, functional consultant implements core application setup processes that help businesses in areas like marketing, sales or supply chain management.

IoT Developer

On the other hand, IoT Developer designs, develops and maintains Internet of Things solutions and devices within MS environments. From coding to the set-up of physical devices.

Security Engineer

As the title suggests, security professionals protect the integrity of data, applications and networks by implementing threat detection and security controls.

Solutions Architect

To conclude, the Solutions Architect is the first person to be involved in a platform deployment process. Moreover, Architects must have a deep understanding of the entire ecosystem to design solutions that run on it.

Has our Microsoft Certification Guide sparked your interest? Explore all role-based MS certifications and specialty certifications.


Learn more about pursuing a career in Microsoft Technologies with our comprehensive Microsoft Technologies careers guide.

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Microsoft Career Paths

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.

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The Microsoft Technology Stack for Business

When it comes to enterprise technology, the Microsoft Technology Stack reaches almost as far as the eye can see. From operating systems and development tools to cloud computing, the company owns an extremely diversified portfolio of solutions that can be hard to keep track of as an IT professional.

Don’t get lost in the clutter. These are the principal platforms that make up the Microsoft Technology Stack.


.NET

An open-source, cross-platform development framework used to build all sorts of applications. .NET, allows developers to choose among a wide variety of programming languages, code editors and libraries, giving users the flexibility and scalability to build solutions for everything from web and mobile to IoT.

It is these broad capabilities that make .NET one of the world’s most popular developer platforms. As such, it benefits from the support of a vast community and an extensive repository of libraries.

GitHub

GitHub has been part of Microsoft since the company acquired it in 2018. The platform is used by both amateur and expert developers to host code, review it and collaborate by focusing on version control and following a continuous integration, continuous delivery (CI/CD) philosophy. 

Its impressive community is what really fuels GitHub. Millions of programmers upload their work and review each other’s code through the platform. As such, GitHub is one of the world’s largest open-access repositories and collaborative projects platforms.

Furthermore, the fact that is used by hobbyists, corporations and top professionals alike has turned GitHub into a sort of LinkedIn for developers and tech enthusiasts. A place to showcase one’s talent and concrete achievements.

Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 is one of today’s leading cloud-based productivity platforms. It combines the traditional MS Office suite with a set of collaboration tools and features like cloud-based storage and Teams to provide organizations and individuals with the means to get things done wherever they are located.

It is a mix of software like Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, with flexible and scalable cloud storage and security and world-class security. From an IT perspective, it requires companies to deploy, maintain and update an infrastructure that is adapted to business needs while preserving security and a nimble spirit.

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Dynamics 365

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are all-encompassing software toolsets with capabilities extending across marketing, sales and customer service. As a leading CRM, Dynamics 365 allows organisations to easily plan and execute operations from a single platform. The speed, efficiency and cohesiveness derived from its use have made CRM a staple of today’s business management – as well as one of the most profitable specialisations in the IT world.

Dynamics 365 is a scalable solution that allows for advanced customization, making it adaptable to the needs of each company. It is the job of technical MS experts to set up, customize and maintain this environment in a way that maximizes efficiency, user satisfaction and customer loyalty.

Test these upcoming Dynamics 365 features

Azure

Microsoft Azure is the company’s public cloud computing platform. A competitor to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and IBM Cloud, Azure provides companies with a wide range of cloud services, including computing, storage, analytics and networking.

Azure is an open-source-friendly, adaptable and scalable platform that fits the needs of every customer. Furthermore, Azure is industry-specific, providing dedicated tools to sectors like healthcare, e-commerce or retail. It offers 4 different types of cloud computing: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and serverless.

A whole army of professionals is needed to design, deploy and maintain such cloud ecosystems.

On Learning Azure IoT and Being an Active Member of the Community

Microsoft Power Platform

The Microsoft Power Platform enables businesses to create and deploy custom-made workflow apps and reports that help them easily extract, process, and analyse data. The Power Platform is integrated with the rest of Microsoft’s ecosystem of platforms as well as with other third-party apps.

It is a key tool in today’s data-driven business world, providing actionable insights in real time. It requires a team of technical experts to deploy, maintain and expand, as well as to train end-users and offer them support on a daily basis.

Microsoft SQL Server

SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS) by Microsoft. Also called MSSQL, it serves as the backbone to data registering, accessing and manipulation for its enterprise customers.

It is protected by high-grade encryption and caters to a variety of businesses depending on size and data needs.

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Visual Studio

Microsoft Visual Studio is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that can be used to build anything from the ground up. In a way, IDEs are the word processors of the programming world, allowing developers to create applications for a multitude of platforms from a single place. Visual Studio includes debugging, automation and team collaboration features, creating a holistic environment to conceive and deliver high-quality applications.


Learn more about the Microsoft Technology Stack and the various roles within Microsoft Technologies in our comprehensive Microsoft Technologies Careers Guide

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