Software Engineer II

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

21h

About The Position

Now more than ever, we live in an age where AI and Cloud Services are empowering people around the world to achieve more. Behind these innovative services exists a critical infrastructure that is bringing them to life. The Search & AI Platform is building that foundation which makes Bing and Copilot possible on a global scale. Our product is impacting individual's lives in scenarios such as Web Search, AI chat, AI grounding, and local deal finding. As a Software Engineer 2 on the Search & AI Platform team you will be collaborating in building core platform capabilities such as vector search infrastructure and AI agent frameworks using in-house and open-source technologies. You will be hands-on in a massively scaled and distributed system. Our developers design, implement, and rollout features with a data-driven and test-driven methodology. Furthermore, you will have the opportunity to work with cutting-edge cloud and machine learning technologies. As part of your work, you will participate in agile scrum, collaborate with people across a variety of domain expertise, and have opportunities to explore and contribute to many areas. Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond. Starting January 26, 2026, Microsoft AI (MAI) employees who live within a 50- mile commute of a designated Microsoft office in the U.S. or 25-mile commute of a non-U.S., country-specific location are expected to work from the office at least four days per week. This expectation is subject to local law and may vary by jurisdiction.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 2+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience
Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role.
Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Nice To Haves

Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 3+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 5+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.
1+ years of experience building distributed services on cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform.
Experience on distributed systems (e.g., communication optimization, network architecture design, network programming).
Experience building distributed services leveraging Kubernetes, Kafka, HDFS, Spark or similar platforms.
Experience on high performance computing (e.g., cache/memory optimization, query optimization, performance benchmark and debugging).
Experience on theory and practice on the approximate nearest neighborhood (ANN) search and the experience on ANN open source, like HNSW, DiskANN, FAISS, SPTAG/SPANN.
Experience on deep learning model, large language model (LLM) serving.
Experience on building AI agents leveraging MCP or A2A protocols.
Demonstrated ability to quantitatively evaluate, implement and verify a solution in a distributed environment, using simulation, testing, counters, logging, and other methodologies.

Responsibilities

Collaborates with appropriate stakeholders to determine user requirements and planning.
Designs, develops and ships new algorithm features or service functionalities with end-to-end ownership and maintenance.
Works on algorithms and methodologies in close collaboration with our research team, including problems in such domains as web-scale search, enterprise search, and document/multi-media search.
Creates, implements, optimizes, debugs, refactors, and reuses code to establish and improve performance, maintainability and effectiveness of the code base.
Acts as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI) in a DevOps model, working on call to monitor services for degradation, downtime, or interruptions, alerting stakeholders about status and initiates actions to restore service for simple and complex problems when appropriate, and improves DRI documentations and participates in knowledge sharing sessions.
Works with customers to design solutions to meet their requirements.
Embodies our Culture and Values.

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