Principal Software Engineer

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

5d•$142,800 - $304,200

About The Position

Microsoft’s Silicon, Cloud, Hardware, and Infrastructure Engineering (SCHIE) organization builds infrastructure and foundational technologies supporting Microsoft’s online businesses and Azure. Within Azure, the Hardware Health Service team designs, implements, and operates globally scalable cloud services that monitor hardware health and predict anomalies and impending failures. The team aims to support cloud platforms with low total cost of ownership and a strong customer experience on unreliable hardware. The Principal Software Engineer will develop and operate cloud services for Azure’s hardware health capabilities, including large-scale, low-latency, high-throughput systems. The role evaluates AI technologies and architectures for firmware and hardware improvements and may implement AI platform enhancements such as fine-tuning or training custom machine-learning models. It contributes to live-service operations, telemetry integration, data analysis, system reliability, quality assurance, security and compliance, and quantitative measurement of analytics and reporting features. The position is designated Software Engineering IC5. A Microsoft Cloud Background Check is required upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field and 6+ years of technical engineering experience coding in languages including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python, 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

Experience developing and operating large-scale, low-latency, high-throughput systems.
Experience evaluating AI technologies such as LLMs, SLMs, and embeddings, and architectures such as orchestration patterns and RAG, for firmware or hardware improvement.
Experience specifying or implementing AI platform improvements, such as fine-tuning or training custom machine-learning models.
Experience driving continuous improvement through root cause analysis and identified opportunities.
Experience with data analysis and feedback integration for product engineering decisions, and DRI responsibility for monitoring and restoring systems within SLA timeframes.
Experience participating in live-service operations and supporting telemetry integration focused on performance, reliability, and safety.
Experience identifying dependencies, producing feature design documentation, learning system interactions and back-end dependencies, and contributing to architectural processes.
Experience writing code to test technical hypotheses and assisting with technical validation.
Experience collaborating on quality assurance plans, augmenting test cases, and integrating test automation, with an understanding of security and compliance in system architecture.
Experience ensuring security, privacy, safety, and accessibility compliance; using developer tools; contributing to production and deployment automation; and improving availability, reliability, efficiency, and performance at scale.
Experience defining and measuring the impact of analytics and reporting features with quantitative measures.

Responsibilities

Develop and operate large-scale, low-latency, high-throughput systems.
Evaluate AI technologies, including LLMs, SLMs, and embeddings, and architectures such as orchestration patterns and RAG for solutions targeting firmware and hardware improvement.
Specify or implement AI platform improvements, such as fine-tuning or training custom machine-learning models.
Drive continuous improvement based on root cause analysis and identified opportunities.
Contribute to data analysis and feedback integration for product engineering decisions, serving as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI) for monitoring and restoring system functionality within SLA timeframes.
Participate in live-service operations and support telemetry data integration to provide insights into system behavior, with a focus on performance, reliability, and safety.
Support identification of dependencies and creation of product-feature design documentation; learn system interactions and back-end dependencies; and contribute to architectural processes under guidance.
Produce code to test hypotheses for technical solutions and assist with technical validation.
Collaborate on quality assurance plans, augment test cases, and integrate automation into testing while understanding security and compliance implications in system architecture.
Ensure compliance with security, privacy, safety, and accessibility standards; use developer tools for code creation and debugging; contribute to production and deployment automation; and seek ways to improve product availability, reliability, efficiency, and performance at scale.
Define and measure the success and impact of requested analytics and reporting features using quantitative measures.