Microsoft Alliance Presales Leader - Cloud and AI Platforms

$165K - $357K Hoboken, NJ, US Mid Level AI/ML Engineer

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Skills & Technologies

Azure

About This Role

AI job market dashboard showing open roles by category

Location: Hoboken Other locations: Anywhere in Country Salary: Competitive Date: Oct 1, 2026 Job description

Requisition ID: 1745222 At EY, we’re all in to shape your future with confidence.

We’ll help you succeed in a globally connected powerhouse of diverse teams and take your career wherever you want it to go. Join EY and help to build a better working world.

The opportunity

EY has curated a dynamic ecosystem of Alliance and Ecosystem relationships which creates new forms of customer value to help our clients rapidly and digitally transform. Our ecosystem consists of more than 100 relationships which allow us to provide a wide range of collaborative opportunities and solutions to our clients. We help them tap into the latest technologies to achieve transformational outcomes and be more agile, innovative, resilient and better equipped to respond to disruptive change.

The EY–Microsoft Alliance plays a critical role in driving revenue growth by identifying, shaping, and closing joint transformation opportunities between EY, Microsoft, and our clients.

As a Global Microsoft Presales Leader for Cloud & AI Platforms, you will play a pivotal role in scaling EY’s ability to win complex, high-value deals. This role is focused on defining and leading global presales strategy, establishing best practices, and shaping major pursuits across priority markets in alignment with Microsoft’s go-to-market model.

You will work closely with global alliance leadership, Microsoft sales teams and regional stakeholders to architect compelling solutions, strengthen EY’s value proposition, and ensure a consistent, high-quality presales approach across the business.

This role requires a strong understanding of enterprise technology and the Microsoft ecosystem, with specialist knowledge in Cloud & AI Platforms, combined with the ability to distill complex ideas into clear, compelling narratives for clients, Microsoft and EY teams.

Your key responsibilities

Your primary responsibilities will include:

  • Global Presales Leadership: Define and lead the global presales strategy for the EY–Microsoft Alliance within a Solution Area, establishing repeatable methods, governance, and best practices to improve pursuit quality and win rates.
  • Major Deal Shaping: Support and lead presales activity on strategic, high-value global pursuits, working with Sales, Alliance, Practice/Delivery and client teams to qualify, shape and close opportunities.
  • Microsoft Alignment: Work with EY Solution Area Directors to align presales approaches to Microsoft’s Cloud & AI Platforms Solution Area and Sales Plays, co-sell motions and field priorities, ensuring effective joint engagement with Microsoft stakeholders.
  • Ecosystem Collaboration: Collaborate across EY service lines, sectors, delivery teams, and Microsoft stakeholders to design integrated, end-to-end solutions addressing complex client challenges. Actively engage with and shape technical communities to bring leading-edge thinking back into delivery.
  • Client Engagement: Engage with senior client stakeholders to shape transformation opportunities and articulate clear, outcome-driven value propositions.
  • Presales Assets & Enablement: Develop reusable assets, proposal content, and playbooks to enable consistent, scalable presales execution across regions and teams.
  • Solution Innovation: Help shape differentiated EY–Microsoft solutions, leveraging the latest Microsoft technology and EY industry capabilities to address priority market opportunities.

This role is Global, optimal base on US, Canada, Europe (UK, Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, Poland) or Singapore. You can anticipate a mix of virtual work along with regular coordination with other team members across Global and across the Globe. The role will require some travel.

Skills and attributes for success

To qualify for the role you must have:

  • Proven Presales and Sales Experience: 8+ years in presales, solution architecture, or enterprise technology sales, with experience supporting complex, high-value pursuits.
  • Microsoft Ecosystem Expertise: Strong working knowledge of Microsoft technologies (e.g. Azure, Data & AI, Security, Business Applications, Copilot) and go-to-market models. Specialism is require in Cloud and AI Platforms.
  • Strategic Advisory Skills: Ability to translate technology into business value, shaping client strategies, providing advisory context and enabling transformation journeys.
  • Solution Development Expertise: Experience developing end-to-end solutions, including business case, value articulation, delivery approach and commercial model.
  • Exceptional Communication Skills: Strong storytelling, presentation and proposal-writing capabilities, with experience influencing C-level stakeholders.
  • Leadership and Stakeholder Management: Proven ability to lead cross-functional, global teams and influence senior stakeholders without direct authority.
  • Results-Driven Mindset: Track record of shaping and winning strategic opportunities, with the ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, global environment.

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Global Experience: Experience working across regions in a global alliance, partner or ecosystem-led sales model.
  • Industry Knowledge: Familiarity with key sectors such as financial services, healthcare, technology and public sector. Depth of experience and knowledge in particular sectors or industry is preferrable.
  • Commercial Acumen: Experience with complex deal structures and non-traditional commercial models for large-scale transformation.
  • Certifications: Relevant Microsoft or enterprise technology certifications.

What we look for:

  • A self-starter who is able to work independently while also communicating progress and challenges with others on the team
  • Comfortable escalating complex issues with recommendations to leadership
  • Strong organizational skills and ability to multi-task in support of multiple projects at a time
  • Comfortable working with others within EY with unique personalities, cultures and working styles and can adapt your approach to best interact.

This job posting relates to an existing vacancy within our organization.

What we offer you (Canada)

We offer a competitive compensation package where you’ll be rewarded based on your performance and recognized for the value you bring to our business. In addition, our Total Rewards package allows you to decide which benefits are right for you and which ones help you create a solid foundation for your future. Our Total Rewards package includes a discretionary bonus program, a comprehensive medical, prescription drug and dental coverage plan, a defined contribution pension plan, a great vacation policy plus firm paid days that allow you to enjoy longer long weekends throughout the year, statutory holidays and paid personal days (based on province of residence), and a range of exciting programs and benefits designed to support your physical, financial and social well-being. Plus, we offer:

  • Support and coaching from some of the most engaging colleagues in the industry
  • Learning opportunities to develop new skills and progress your career
  • The freedom and flexibility to handle your role in a way that’s right for you

Are you ready to shape your future with confidence? Apply today.

To help create the best experience during the recruitment process, please describe any accommodation you may need.

Inclusiveness at EY

Inclusiveness is at the heart of who we are and how we work. We’re committed to fostering an environment where differences are valued, policies and practices are equitable, and our people feel a sense of belonging. We embrace diversity and are committed to combating systemic racism, advancing gender equity and women in leadership, advocating for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, promoting our neuroinclusion and accessibility initiatives, and are dedicated to amplifying the voices of Indigenous peoples (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) nationally as we strive towards reconciliation. Our diverse experiences, abilities, backgrounds, and perspectives make our people unique and help guide us. Because when people feel free to be their authentic selves at work, they bring their best and are empowered to build a better working world.

Learn about our commitment to Inclusiveness at https://www.ey.com/en_ca/about-us/corporate-responsibility/equity

What we offer you

The compensation ranges below are provided in order to comply with United States pay transparency laws. Other geographies will follow their local salary guidelines, which may not be a direct conversion of published US salary ranges. At EY, we harness our collective strength to empower you to shape your future with confidence through professional growth, personal fulfillment and an inclusive culture. Learn more at ey.com/us/careers.

  • We offer a comprehensive compensation and benefits package where you’ll be rewarded based on your performance and recognized for the value you bring to the business. The base salary range for this job is:
  • + New York City, Boston, and Washington DC Metro Areas, Washington State, and Southern California offices – $198,900 to $357,900 + Bay Area California offices – $207,100 to $372,900 + All other offices locations in the US, including Sacramento – $165,700 to $328,100
  • Individual salaries within these ranges are determined through a wide variety of factors including but not limited to education, experience, knowledge, skills and geography. In addition, our Total Rewards package includes medical and dental coverage, pension and 401(k) plans, and a wide range of paid time off options.
  • Under our flexible vacation policy, you’ll decide how much vacation time you need based on your own personal circumstances. You’ll also be granted time off for designated EY Paid Holidays, Winter/Summer breaks, Personal/Family Care, and other leaves of absence when needed to support your physical, financial, and emotional well-being.

Are you ready to shape your future with confidence? Apply today.

  • To make the most of your application experience, please limit yourself to two applications within a six-month period.
  • EY accepts applications for this position on an on-going basis.
  • For those living in California, please click here for additional information.
  • At EY, our values set the foundation for how we work and the behaviors we expect of our people. Any misrepresentation or falsification of information or lack of integrity at any point in the recruiting process may result in withdrawal of your candidacy, revocation of an offer or immediate termination of employment.

EY | Building a better working world

EY is building a better working world by creating new value for clients, people, society and the planet, while building trust in capital markets.

Enabled by data, AI and advanced technology, EY teams help clients shape the future with confidence and develop answers for the most pressing issues of today and tomorrow.

EY teams work across a full spectrum of services in assurance, consulting, tax, strategy and transactions. Fueled by sector insights, a globally connected, multi-disciplinary network and diverse ecosystem partners, EY teams can provide services in more than 150 countries and territories.

All in to shape the future with confidence.

EY provides equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, pregnancy, genetic information, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other legally protected basis, including arrest and conviction records, in accordance with applicable law.

EY is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities including veterans with disabilities. If you have a disability and either need assistance applying online or need to request an accommodation during any part of the application process, please call 1-800-EY-HELP3, select Option 2 for candidate related inquiries, then select Option 1 for candidate queries and finally select Option 2 for candidates with an inquiry which will route you to EY’s Talent Shared Services Team (TSS) or email the TSS at [email protected].

__________________________________________________

At EY, we use artificial intelligence (AI) tools as one element of our recruitment process to enhance efficiency and improve the candidate experience. While AI supports us in our process, human judgment and decision-making remain integral in our candidate experience. We are committed to the responsible use of AI, and our practices are continuously reviewed and refined to ensure they align with the highest ethical principles and regulatory requirements

To all recruitment agencies: EY does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruitment agencies. Any resumes submitted without a prior agreement or request from our hiring team will not be considered. EY is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.

Salary Context

This $165K-$357K range is above the 75th percentile for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $176K across 1540 roles with salary data).

View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →

Role Details

Company EY
Title Microsoft Alliance Presales Leader - Cloud and AI Platforms
Location Hoboken, NJ, US
Category AI/ML Engineer
Experience Mid Level
Salary $165K - $357K
Remote No

About This Role

AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.

Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.

Across the 9,653 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 76% of the market. At EY, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.

Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.

What the Work Looks Like

A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.

Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.

Skills Required

Azure (8% of roles)

Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.

Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.

Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.

Compensation Benchmarks

AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $212,000 based on 11,857 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $193,200. This role's midpoint ($261K) sits 23% above the category median. Disclosed range: $165K to $357K.

Across all AI roles, the market median is $213,400. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,230. The 90th percentile reaches $319,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($253,100) and Research Engineer ($252,000). By seniority level: Entry: $110,408; Mid: $193,200; Senior: $228,700; Director: $272,275; VP: $235,000.

EY AI Hiring

EY has 65 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, Data Engineer, AI Engineering Manager, AI Architect. Positions span Secaucus, NJ, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, McLean, VA, US. Compensation range: $142K - $357K.

Location Context

Across all AI roles, 6% (568 positions) offer remote work, while 9,010 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (2,878 roles, $221,000 median); San Francisco (2,413 roles, $264,500 median); Los Angeles (1,340 roles, $210,000 median).

Career Path

Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.

From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.

The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.

What to Expect in Interviews

Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.

When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.

AI Hiring Overview

The AI job market has 9,653 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 193 entry-level, 4,500 mid-level, 3,455 senior, and 1,505 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (568 positions). The remaining 9,010 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.

The market median for AI roles is $213,400. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,230. The 90th percentile reaches $319,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($253,100 median, 57 roles); Research Engineer ($252,000 median, 419 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($251,622 median, 51 roles).

Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.

The AI Job Market Today

The AI job market spans 9,653 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (7,301), Data Scientist (441), AI Software Engineer (438). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.

The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (193) are outnumbered by mid-level (4,500) and senior (3,455) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 1,505 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.

Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (568 positions), with 9,010 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.

AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $213,400. Top-quartile roles start at $264,230, and the 90th percentile reaches $319,400. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.

Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $253,100 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $141,440. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.

The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,605 postings), Aws (916 postings), Azure (724 postings), Rag (634 postings), Gcp (522 postings), Pytorch (495 postings), Kubernetes (384 postings), Claude (383 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.

Frequently Asked Questions

Based on 11,857 roles with disclosed compensation, the median salary for AI/ML Engineer positions is $212,000. Actual compensation varies by seniority, location, and company stage.
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
About 6% of the 9,653 AI roles we track offer remote work. Remote availability varies by company and seniority level, with senior and leadership roles more likely to offer location flexibility.
EY is among the companies actively hiring for AI and ML talent. Check our company profiles for detailed breakdowns of open roles, salary ranges, and hiring trends.
Common next steps from AI/ML Engineer positions include ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer. Progression depends on whether you lean toward technical depth, people management, or product strategy.

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