Principal Software Engineer

Do you want to be at the forefront of innovating the latest hardware and systems designs to propel Microsoft’s cloud growth? Are you seeking a unique career opportunity that combines technical capabilities, cross team collaboration, with business insight and strategy?  

Join our Leading-Edge Architecture Pathfinding (LEAP) team within the Strategic Planning and Architecture (SPARC) organization in Azure Hardware Systems & Infrastructure (AHSI). AHSI is the team behind Microsoft’s expanding cloud business, responsible for delivering the hardware systems and infrastructure for cloud computing across Microsoft Azure, Bing, MSN, Office 365, OneDrive, Skype, Teams and Xbox Live.   

The SPARC organization is responsible for strategy, planning and architecture pathfinding, and manages Azure’s hardware roadmap from architecture concept through production for Microsoft’s current and future on-line services. The LEAP team within SPARC is at the forefront of systems architecture and technology pathfinding spanning compute, memory, storage, network and system interconnects. Drawing on deep insights of workloads, emerging technology trends, and focused industry engagements, LEAP team’s charter is to define and evaluate novel systems architecture innovations through hardware/software co-design and advance them through technical readiness for productization.  

The LEAP team is seeking a Principal Software Engineer for architecture pathfinding and evaluation of system interconnects for high-performance accelerated computing systems, with a goal to enable performant, flexible provisioning of memory and compute infrastructure. This role has substantial technical and roadmap shaping responsibilities that requires in-depth technical expertise in AI models, parallel computing, communication algorithms and libraries, for serving and training systems, scale-up and scale-out interconnects/topologies, and system architecture modelling. The candidate must have a proven track-record of accelerator system co-design that extends from workloads to hardware and software. Additionally, they should possess the capability to guide and influence innovations from the initial concept stage all the way through to product development. 

Success in this role requires: 

• Listening to those who operate Azure and their customers to identify current and emerging problems 
• Identifying promising technologies to address problems relevant for Azure business, engaging ecosystem partners, and derisking productization via capable proof-of-concepts  
• Working across organizational boundaries with roadmap planners, product architects, and hardware and software engineering teams to land promising solutions in Azure data centers.  

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.

In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day. 

Required Qualifications:  

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or related technical discipline AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python

  • OR equivalent experience.

• 6+ years of experience in performance analysis and systems modelling of AI and parallel computing workloads with track record of influencing architecture direction.    
• 6+ years of experience with hardware/software co-design projects involving GPGPU/accelerator systems, along with experience with emerging AI models, frameworks and software stacks. 

Other Requirements

• Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: Microsoft Cloud Background Check:
  • This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Preferred/Additional Qualifications:

• Skilled in partnering and influencing architects, hardware engineers, and software leads. 
• Ability to manage through ambiguity, bringing clarity and results orientation to engage and energize collaborators and stakeholders.  
• Collaboration skills, teamwork, and sense of presumed responsibility.  
• Verbal and written communication skills, and ability to articulate and engage with both technical and non-technical stakeholders at all levels.  
• Experience leading and driving complex projects with respect and integrity, including those with multiple workstreams spanning different business and technical disciplines.  
• Intellectual curiosity and passion about learning and deploying new technologies.   
• Problem-solving skills, analytical capabilities, and attention to detail.

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $137,600 - $267,000 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 $180,400 - $294,000 per year.

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

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until January 29, 2025. 

• Develop performance analysis methodologies and tools to evaluate memory-centric interconnect technologies for scale-up communication and memory disaggregation/expansion for accelerated computing workloads.
• Develop deep insights through workload characterization and correlation to identify systems optimization opportunities.
• Collaborate with domain experts on AI workloads, software compiler/libraries, SoC, and platform infrastructure to engineer TCO-optimized solutions for Azure AI usages. 
• Influence and shape hardware architecture, targeting three-to-six-year timeframe, with data-driven analysis, insights and recommendations. 
• Embody our and