Senior Principal Hardware Engineer

Microsoft • Redmond, WA

2d • $165,600 - $331,200

About The Position

Microsoft Silicon, Cloud Hardware, and Infrastructure Engineering (SCHIE) supports Microsoft's expanding cloud infrastructure and Intelligent Cloud mission. The Hardware, Infrastructure Management, and Fundamentals Engineering (HIFE) team helps define and deliver operational measures for hardware manufacturing, improving planning, quality, delivery, scale, and sustainability for Microsoft cloud hardware. The role focuses on customer-oriented technical solutions that manage and optimize cloud infrastructure, with particular emphasis on hardware quality, supplier management, and GPU subsystem failure analysis.

The Senior Principal Hardware Engineer provides technical leadership on complex quality solutions, collaborates with internal and external partners, and leads the investigation and resolution of critical hardware and software/firmware issues. The engineer supports multiple new-product-introduction builds and quality phase-gate deliverables through production readiness, establishes quality metrics, and represents quality in hardware change management. The position also involves hands-on debugging in global data centers, onsite and virtually, and use of AI tooling and agentic capabilities to scale debugging and data management.

Requirements

• Doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field and 6+ years of technical engineering experience; or a master's degree in one of these fields and 9+ years; or a bachelor's degree in one of these fields and 11+ years; 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, System Engineering, or a related field and 8+ years of technical engineering experience; or a master's degree in one of these fields and 12+ years; or a bachelor's degree in one of these fields and 15+ years; or equivalent experience.
• Patent or track record of engineering excellence.
• 12+ years of experience working with modern server architectures, including understanding of 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 understanding of power, system, driver, workloads, and network environments.
• 3+ years of direct GPU-related engineering experience in issue debugging and test-log review.
• Experience with liquid cooling systems in data centers.
• Leadership skills and ability to collaborate with diverse teams and drive a call to action.
• Experience filtering applicable debug 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

• Provide technical leadership focused on complex quality solutions with external and internal partners.
• Use AI tooling and agentic capabilities to scale debugging and data management.
• Drive continuous improvement through root cause analysis and identified opportunities.
• 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.
• Conduct hands-on debugging in global data centers, onsite and virtually, with a focus on GPU subsystem failure analysis.
• Manage multiple NPI builds and quality phase-gate deliverables for manufacturing 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