Senior Security Sales Specialist - Auckland

Job description

**Overview** Do you enjoy working on a high-performing, fast-paced sales team?  Are you insatiably curious and do you lean into uncertainty, take risks, and learn quickly from your mistakes? If so, we are looking for you! At **Small Medium Enterprises and Channel (SME&C)**, we are leading a high-growth, AI-powered global sales team—one that is deeply connected to our partners and driven by customer success. By uniting our Small Medium Business, Corporate, Strategy, and Partner teams, we are unlocking the largest customer opportunity, backed by the industry’s most significant investments. Leveraging the power of AI and our extensive partner ecosystem, we are redefining how businesses of all sizes adopt technology to drive growth and innovation. SME&C is more than a sales organization—it’s a culture of innovation, opportunity, and inclusivity. Here, you’ll be part of a diverse, high-performing, and customer-obsessed team where collaboration, connection, and continuous learning fuel everything we do. If you thrive in a fast-paced, digital-first environment and are eager to make a meaningful impact, explore how SME&C can be the next step in your career. Together, we are shaping the future of business. As a **Senior Security Sales Specialist**, you will take the lead in harnessing the power of AI to achieve customer leadership. Your efforts will be instrumental in executing solution sales strategies by leveraging various programs and offers. Additionally, you will be responsible for selling cloud services and platforms tailored for our managed customers. Furthermore, you will play a significant role in enabling AI and Digital transformation momentum for our customers, partners, and Microsoft. Security has never been more top of mind for governments and businesses, and Microsoft Security Solution is committed to keeping nations and citizens secure in an increasingly complex cyber landscape. As the largest security company in the world, we are ideally placed to think outside the box to help our customers make the world a safer place. Following a year of incredible success, we are excited to be expanding our team with diversified, and driven new talent, eager to make a difference in the fight against cybercrime. We are keen to hear your thoughts on how we can further achieve our purpose. Join our team and discover unique opportunities to grow, develop and learn. In the Security Specialists team, we are looking for passionate, experienced, and credible specialist sellers with a drive for developing and winning strategic opportunities that deliver end-to-end security thought leadership driving significant customer value and enabling transformational customer outcomes. As a Security Specialist you will build digital transformation security strategies with customers, collaborating across different groups inside the Customer environment to successfully enable them to be more secure. You will lead consultative customer conversations and collaborate on the planning, orchestration and execution of end-to-end Security opportunities with internal stakeholders and partners to cross-sell and up-sell. This opportunity will allow you to learn and accelerate your career growth, honing your solution sales and collaboration skills and deepening your end-to-end security expertise. This opportunity will allow you to accelerate your career growth, honing your solution sales and collaboration skills, and deepening your cloud expertise. This role is flexible in that you can work up to 50% from home. Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond. **Responsibilities** - Sales Execution- Engages in conversation with customers aligned to their industry and collaborates with account and partner team to drive and qualify new opportunities and build pipeline. - Identifies customer business and technology readiness, proactively builds external stakeholders' mapping, implements strategies to accelerate the closing of deals, contributes input on strategies to drive and close prioritized opportunities, coaches team members in deal plan execution, and implements close plans.​ - Business Value Selling: Hunt new Security opportunities by identifying and engaging with key business contacts, partners, understanding customers’ business and technology priorities, governance, decision and budget processes, and landing the value proposition. - Scaling and Collaboration- Applies role orchestration model and navigates the Microsoft organization to bring the best impact to the customer.​ - Collaborates with Global Partner Solutions (GPS), identifies new partners, develops joint proposals with partners, and contributes to developing partner strategies. - Technical Expertise- You will initiate Security discussions with business decision makers conversations, share best practices and key competitor knowledge across solution areas acting as a subject matter expert to make recommendations on pursuit or withdrawal. Leverages and shares competitor knowledge across solution areas as a subject matter expert to inform decisions on pursuit or withdrawal. - Leads conversations and sets up events within Microsoft, mentors others and develops strategies for best practice sharing, initiates conversations with prospective customers/partners at events, acts as a subject matter expert in one or more solution area(s). - Collaborates with the 'compete' SMEs internally to analyze competitor products, solutions, and/or services and implement strategies. ​ - Sales Excellence: You will collaborate with partners and resources to plan for accounts, do compete plans, forecasting, and business analysis to pursue high-potential customers - Showcase a learning mentality: Demonstrate a willingness to invest in your personal learning in the Cybersecurity arena. - Delivers Results Through Teamwork - Drives the execution of projects, partners and collaborates with other teams on related deliverables, and leverages others in relevant work streams.​ **Qualifications** **Required/Minimum Qualifications (RQs/MQs)** - 6+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience; - OR Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology, Business Administration, or related field AND 5+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience - Cybersecurity industry experience. Microsoft security portfolio knowledge preferred - Demonstrated experience selling complex, cloud-based solutions to small and medium enterprise customers - Proven sales and negotiation experience - Proven self-starter able to work towards delivery of goals as best practices are being developed - Able to drive technical security conversations and conduct product/solution demonstrations - Solid understanding of security market and complete solutions - Experience in managing channel sales **Additional or Preferred Qualifications (PQs)** - 8+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience - OR Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology, or related field AND 6+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience - OR Master's Degree in Business Administration (e.g., MBA), Information Technology, or related field AND 5+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience - 3+ years of solution sales or consulting services sales experience. - Strategic thinking & execution: Ability to develop sales and business strategy options, while also being able to successfully execute plans and build relationships. - Ability to communicate (written and verbal) and negotiate, be organized, presentat. Possess financial acumen. - High Performer. Highly driven person who consistently exceeds goals and expectations and has the ability, characteristics, and determination to compete effectively against skilled and diverse competition. - Collaborative. Work cohesively with members of the Microsoft sales & services team, Microsoft partners, engineering, and marketing to solve customer and partner issues, leverage best-practices, & deliver results. - Growth Mindset. Ability to overcome and work around problems that are inevitable in rapidly growing businesses – positive approach to problem solving, learning, and development. - Purposeful Planner & Executor – Delivers business impact with intentional planning, driving clarity to the team with consistent coaching rhythms, removing blockers and ensuring quarterly business budget goals are met. - Disciplined Operator – Maintains excellence in pipeline management, forecasting and driving integrated territory and budget achievement planning. - Technical breadth: Enterprise customer level experience with cloud, hybrid infrastructures, productivity and security technologies, and industry standards recommended. Experience in competitor platforms and certifications preferred. - Technical Skills: AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals Certified or SC-900 Security & Compliance Fundaments Certified or willingness to attain SC-900 certification within 3 months. - Proficient: Experience with complex sales training (e.g., Miller Hyman, Spin, Michael Bosworth, Holden, etc.) and sales methodologies - Competes to win new market share. 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, read more about [**requesting accommodations.**](https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html)