A Day in the Life: What is a Premier Field Engineer?

If you are wondering what exactly a Premier Field Engineer (PFE) is and what their role consists of, or are just curious about learning more on the role, this is the place for you. Maybe you are even looking to jump-start your career, if so here is a little bit more information on the role of a Premier Field Engineering to see if this would be the right fit for you!

What is Premier Field Engineering?

Whether you know what a PFE does or are unfamiliar with this title, this position plays an important role in the delivery and success of Microsoft Dynamics products. First off, it's important to recognize that not all PFEs are the same, as, through training, they become specialized in a specific technology. This means that there can be PFEs working with all sorts of different technologies or services. PFE belongs to the Microsoft Global Business Support group. Our group of PFEs focuses on Business Applications, specifically in Dynamics 365. This is a cloud service providing a combination of solutions, under two subcategories, Customer Engagement (CE) and Finance and Operations (F&O). It provides customers with a one-stop-shop so they aren't wasting time and resources switching from different platforms or products and can break down silos of information under one unified platform. One awesome thing about being a PFE is that you can work with many different industries ranging from Banking, Government, Health, Manufacturing, and Retail, etc.

PFEs can also have different types of workloads as there are Dedicated PFEs, known as Designated Service Engineer (DSEs), and Transactional PFEs who may have multiple engagements with many different customers. Designated PFEs usually operate closer with one to a few accounts/clients, who have purchased many contract hours.

What do they do?

The focus of this role is to deliver Proactive Support and Reactive Support, whether it be completed on-site or remote. Proactive Support is long term and involves helping customers identifying ways to improve business. This is where Microsoft Dynamics 365 Services kick in, a company may be seeking to expand its customer base, where PFEs will then go down the Customer Engagement (CE) route. On the other hand, they may wish to develop via the Finance and Operations (F&O) route. Support of this spectrum is offered via Workshops, Health Checks, Risk Assessment Programs (RAP), Supportability/Code/Performance Reviews, and Chalk-Talks. Reactive Support revolves around troubleshooting and engaging with the customer to get products working the way they should if an error occurs.

One of the coolest parts about being a Premier Field Engineering is the ability to work directly with customers throughout the different stages in this process. You get to be a part of talking to clients and identifying their needs and which services can benefit them, to implementing these services, and lastly, you get to see the results. Working in services, you are truly able to see the outcomes of your work and directly see how the implementation of these services have positively affected the client's business.

Other responsibilities include:

   - Specific problem isolation and correction

   - User-mode debugging

   - Conducting application design and supportability reviews

   - Performance tuning

   - Application stability consulting

   - Troubleshooting

   - Porting/migration assistance, configuration management, pre-rollout testing and general IT support consulting

If you're based out of the United States and are passionate about providing awesome solutions to customers, and interested in joining our Dynamics 365 team, reach out to pfedynamics@microsoft.com! Otherwise, if you stumbled upon this but are interested in other Microsoft job opportunities, check out https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en.