Principal Software Engineer - HW/SW in Fleet Infrastructure
About The Position
The Fleet & Capacity organization within Microsoft 365 Core Platform ensures the right infrastructure is available in the right places at the right time to support Microsoft 365 services at hyperscale. It drives capacity strategy, hardware platform readiness, fleet health, reliability engineering, lifecycle management, and operational excellence across Microsoft’s global cloud infrastructure. The Principal Software Engineer will provide technical leadership for the evolution of Substrate’s hardware and firmware platforms. The role shapes New Product Introduction strategy, hardware and firmware health architecture, live-site reliability, and the future direction of AI-optimized infrastructure. It works across Microsoft 365, Azure infrastructure, hardware engineering teams, silicon providers, OEM/ODM partners, and operations organizations to define architecture, influence platform strategy, and solve complex infrastructure problems at global scale. The position calls for technical depth, architectural judgment, and the ability to create clarity across ambiguous, cross-organizational problems. Principal engineers are expected to lead architecture across teams, influence strategy, and foster successful collaboration. The role is part of Microsoft’s mission-driven culture, which emphasizes growth mindset, innovation, collaboration, respect, integrity, accountability, and inclusion.
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 the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.
Nice To Haves
- Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field and 8+ years of technical engineering experience coding in languages including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python; or a bachelor’s degree in a related field and 12+ years of such experience; or equivalent experience.
- Deep experience with hardware platforms, firmware, OS, drivers, datacenter infrastructure software, storage systems, networking, or platform software.
- Experience with New Product Introduction, platform validation, deployment readiness, lifecycle management, or fleet-scale hardware operations.
- Experience in hyperscale fleet live sites using telemetry, observability, failure analysis, predictive diagnostics, or automation to improve infrastructure reliability.
- Experience working with silicon providers, hardware vendors, OEMs, ODMs, firmware teams, or platform engineering organizations.
- Experience influencing cross-organizational engineering strategy and driving complex technical programs across multiple teams.
- Communication skills and the ability to explain technical tradeoffs to senior engineering and business leaders.
- Experience with Microsoft Secure environments or U.S. Government clouds.
Responsibilities
- Partner with broad teams to design, develop, validate, debug, and optimize infrastructure software across OS, firmware, fleet health, hardware repair, telemetry, and monitoring areas.
- Define technical strategy and architecture for New Product Introduction across Microsoft 365 fleet infrastructure, including platform bring-up, validation, deployment readiness, and lifecycle management.
- Design hardware and firmware reliability architecture, including health telemetry, diagnostics, failure detection, predictive insights, and remediation automation.
- Drive failure analysis and root cause investigation for critical live-site incidents involving hardware, firmware, OS, storage, networking, or infrastructure platforms, and drive durable improvements that reduce recurrence.
- Partner across Microsoft 365, Azure Hardware Systems, silicon vendors, OEM/ODM partners, firmware teams, and operations organizations to improve platform reliability, scalability, and serviceability.
- Establish engineering standards, observability patterns, and operational mechanisms that improve fleet availability, reduce deployment risk, and strengthen hyperscale infrastructure operations.
- Evolve M365 substrate infrastructure strategy for AI and agentic workloads across compute, memory, storage, and networking domains.
- Influence cross-organizational technical direction, communicate complex tradeoffs clearly, and help teams make durable architecture decisions.
- Mentor early-in-career engineers.
- Embody Microsoft’s culture and values.
Benefits
- Benefits and other compensation may be available for certain roles; the posting directs applicants to Microsoft’s careers website for additional benefits and pay information.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Principal
