Principal Firmware Architect

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

2d•$142,800 - $304,200

About The Position

Microsoft Silicon, Cloud Hardware, and Infrastructure Engineering (SCHIE) powers Microsoft’s expanding cloud infrastructure and supports the Intelligent Cloud mission. Its firmware architecture team defines firmware for complex SoCs, including the Cobalt general-purpose server processor and Maia AI accelerator, so that they operate safely, reliably, securely, and with low total cost of ownership. The team works with silicon and Azure datacenter partners to shape platforms using industry standards and platform-specific features. The Firmware Architect designs and develops firmware architecture and solutions for embedded systems, contributing throughout product development from initial design through manufacturing and productization. The role involves close collaboration with hardware and cross-functional engineering teams, technical leadership, system integration, and preparation for product deployment. The role requires a qualifying degree or equivalent experience, along with the specified technical engineering experience. It also requires passing Microsoft’s Cloud Background Check and meeting applicable export-control eligibility requirements. The typical U.S. base pay range is $142,800–$274,800 per year; a separate range of $188,000–$304,200 applies in the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area. The position will be open for at least five days, with applications accepted until it is filled.

Requirements

Doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field and 3+ years of technical engineering experience; or a master’s degree in one of these fields and 6+ years of experience; or a bachelor’s degree in one of these fields and 8+ years of experience; or equivalent experience.
Ability to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements, including passing the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.
Ability to meet applicable export-control eligibility requirements. The successful candidate must provide proof of citizenship, U.S. residency, or another protected status for assessment, with citizenship verified using a valid passport; applicable alternative documents may be used by lawful permanent residents, refugees, and asylees.

Nice To Haves

Doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field and 5+ years of technical engineering experience with coding; or a master’s degree in one of these fields and 8+ years of experience with coding; or a bachelor’s degree in one of these fields and 12+ years of experience with coding; or equivalent experience.
At least 1 year of experience working on or leading projects from beginning to end.
Experience writing architecture documents for systems implemented by other teams.
Experience with SoC bring-up and internal workings, such as internal fabric, power management, reset flows, and secure operational flows.
Strong collaboration skills, including coordinating with stakeholders inside and outside the team.
Experience with Rust is helpful.

Responsibilities

Design, develop, and implement firmware solutions for embedded systems.
Contribute to all phases of product development, from initial design and architecture through manufacturing and productization.
Define and develop firmware architecture for key systems, ensuring scalability, reliability, and performance.
Collaborate with hardware engineering teams to ensure seamless hardware and firmware integration.
Design, develop, and maintain firmware components, including driver interfaces, system libraries, and low-level hardware interfaces.
Support SoC bring-up, platform initialization, bootloader development, and board support package (BSP) porting.
Develop and optimize firmware for hardware interfaces and peripherals, including PCIe, NVMe, I2C, SPI, USB, and UART.
Contribute to internal fabric and protocol development, and low-level hardware feature implementation.
Implement and optimize operating system primitives, including memory management, scheduling, interrupts, and threading.
Debug, troubleshoot, and resolve complex firmware and hardware integration issues.
Provide technical leadership in firmware design, development, testing, and validation.
Partner with cross-functional engineering teams to support system integration, product readiness, and deployment.