Principal Hardware Engineer

Microsoft • Redmond, WA

2d • $142,800 - $304,200

About The Position

Microsoft Silicon, Cloud Hardware, and Infrastructure Engineering (SCHIE) supports Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and its online businesses, including Microsoft Azure. The Hardware, Infrastructure Management, and Fundamentals Engineering (HIFE) team defines and delivers operational measures for hardware manufacturing, planning, quality, delivery, scale, and sustainability. The Principal Hardware Engineer will help manage and optimize cloud infrastructure by delivering customer-focused technical solutions and ensuring hardware is manufactured and deployed on time, at high volume, with high quality and low cost.

This role provides technical leadership for complex quality solutions and supplier quality management. It involves hands-on debugging in global data centers, particularly GPU subsystem failure analysis, and collaboration with data centers, development groups, and suppliers to resolve high-severity hardware and software/firmware issues. The engineer will lead continuous improvement based on root cause analysis, manage NPI builds and quality phase-gate deliverables through production readiness, establish Critical-to-Quality metrics, and represent quality in hardware change management.

Requirements

• Doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, 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 technical engineering experience; or a bachelor's degree in one of these fields and 8+ years of technical engineering 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.

Nice To Haves

• Doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field and 5+ years of technical engineering experience; or a master's degree in one of these fields and 8+ years of technical engineering experience; or a bachelor's degree in one of these fields and 12+ years of technical engineering experience; or equivalent experience.
• 12+ years working with modern server architectures, including understanding GPU, GPU system hardware, memory, or CPU, and methods for failure analysis, debugging, or validation.
• 12+ years of proven success leading resolution of critical quality issues across data centers.
• 8+ years of system-level server debugging, with an understanding of power, system, driver, workloads, and network environments.
• 3+ years of direct GPU-related engineering experience in issue debugging and test-log review.
• Patent or track record of engineering excellence.
• Experience with liquid cooling systems in data centers.
• Leadership skills and ability to collaborate with diverse teams and drive action.
• Experience filtering applicable debugging data, such as telemetry and logs, to identify and investigate hardware failure signatures.
• Experience with AI tooling and agentic utilization for scaling debugging and data management.

Responsibilities

• Perform hands-on debugging in data centers, onsite and virtually, with a focus on GPU subsystem failure analysis.
• Provide technical leadership for complex quality solutions with internal and external partners.
• Develop and implement a supplier quality management strategy to ensure data center hardware meets high quality standards.
• Work across data centers, development groups, and suppliers to resolve critical and high-severity hardware and software/firmware issues.
• Use AI tooling and agentic approaches to scale debugging and data management.
• Drive continuous improvement based on root cause analysis and identified opportunities.
• Manage multiple NPI builds and manufacturing-team quality phase-gate deliverables throughout the engineering development lifecycle, from concept through production readiness.
• Establish Critical-to-Quality performance metrics to measure and improve product quality.
• Represent quality in the hardware change management process and ensure quality requirements are considered and met.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior