Competitive Intelligence Leader

Overview

MCAPS Core accelerates customer outcomes and business growth by uniting product, engineering, marketing, sales, customer success, and partners around a shared customer mission. We help customers realize value faster and translate innovation into measurable business impact. Through deep technical expertise and differentiated go-to-market execution, we win competitively, capture market share, and scale repeatable growth motions.

We're looking for a Competitive Intelligence Leader to build and lead a world-class, platform-level competitive intelligence and activation function. This leader will assess and activate how Microsoft best competes across its full cloud and AI platform-not within a single solution area-against Google, Amazon, Anthropic, and other AI and cloud platform providers. You will turn market, competitor, and customer account signals into strategic advantage by shaping product and go-to-market decisions, equipping field teams with clear actions, and establishing accountability for follow-through and outcomes.

This highly cross-functional strategy role sits at the intersection of Product, Go-to-Market, Research, and Leadership. You will establish the analytical rigor that helps Microsoft understand where we win, where we are vulnerable, and how the market is evolving-and ensure those insights change what our product, marketing, and field teams do. You will complement, rather than duplicate, the deep product-level competitive work already performed within solution areas.

Candidates who live within 50 miles of Microsofts Redmond campus will be required to work in the office 3 days per week.

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

Competitive Strategy and Analysis

• Build and own Microsoft's platform-level competitive intelligence and activation strategy, including an operating model that connects market evidence, account signals, product implications, and field action across solution areas and segments.

• Monitor competitor product launches, model releases, acquisitions, partnerships, pricing changes, funding, and go-to-market motions. Assess the evidence, confidence level, cross-portfolio implications, and account relevance of each material signal; synthesize findings into clear strategic recommendations; and route time-sensitive actions through established product, marketing, and field channels.

Field Engagement and Activation

• Treat the field as the team's primary customer. Engage sales, specialist, customer success, and partner leaders to understand where Microsoft is winning and losing, and prioritize the intelligence they need most.

• Create actionable, event-driven alerts and account-ready insights based on competitor launches, key customer personnel and leadership changes, pricing moves, renewals, and competitive footholds. Route each insight to the appropriate field team with a clear recommended action.

• Deliver compete playbooks & tactics which can be implemented across the Microsoft Customer Engagement Model and within existing tools and agents to optimize field Sales and Technical account team's usage and effectiveness.

• Run a continuous field feedback loop and measure activation-including usage, actions taken, and impact on win rates-to improve the relevance and effectiveness of the team's deliverables.

Executive and Product Influence

• Create executive-ready competitive insights that inform product strategy, roadmap prioritization, pricing, and investment decisions, while translating implications into clear priorities for product, marketing, and field execution.

• Support executive leadership with board-ready competitive analyses, market briefings, and recurring competitive reviews that identify priority threats and opportunities, assign accountable follow-through, and track whether recommended actions improve Microsoft's competitive position or customer outcomes.

Other:

• Embody our culture and values.

Qualifications

Required/minimum qualifications

• Bachelors Degree in Business Administration, Finance, Economics, Computer Science, Engineering or related field AND 5+ years experience in competitive intelligence, strategy consulting, product strategy, corporate strategy or a related field

OR equivalent experience.

• 4+ years experience in in Near Term Strategy (2 years out), Management Consulting, Sales, or Finance.

Additional or preferred qualifications

• Masters Degree in Business Administration, Finance, Economics, Computer Science, Engineering or related field AND 5+ years experience in competitive intelligence, strategy consulting, product strategy, corporate strategy or a related field

OR Bachelors Degree in Business Administration, Finance, Economics, Computer Science, Engineering or related field AND 7+ years experience in competitive intelligence, strategy consulting, product strategy, corporate strategy or a related field

OR equivalent experience.

• 3+ years people management experience.

• Demonstrated success winning competitive, large-scale enterprise transformation engagements, leveraging competitive intelligence to develop win strategies, differentiate solutions, and deliver measurable customer outcomes.

• Experience with enterprise software, AI/ML, foundation models, SaaS, cloud technologies, or developer platforms.

• Experience leading competitive intelligence functions, including market analysis, competitive positioning, benchmarking, and win/loss programs.

• Experience translating quantitative data, qualitative research, customer feedback, and market intelligence into actionable insights, competitive frameworks, and sales enablement resources.

• Experience partnering across Product, Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Executive teams to develop scalable processes, best practices, and competitive sales strategies.

• Experience supporting enterprise sales organizations through competitive battlecards, sales enablement, and strategic planning.

• Experience in management consulting or strategic planning.

• Effective analytical, communication, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence senior leaders and navigate ambiguity.

Sales Strategy Enablement M5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $130,900 - $251,900 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $165,600 - $272,300 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:

https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

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.