Principal Software Engineer

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Do you want to be at the forefront of innovating the latest hardware and systems designs to propel Microsoft’s cloud growth? Are you seeking a unique career opportunity that combines technical capabilities, cross-team collaboration, with business insight and strategy?

Join our Leading-Edge Architecture Pathfinding (LEAP) team within the System Planning and Architecture (SPARC) organization in Azure Hardware Systems & Infrastructure (AHSI). AHSI is the team behind Microsoft’s expanding cloud business, responsible for delivering the hardware systems and infrastructure for cloud computing across Microsoft Azure, Bing, MSN, Office 365, OneDrive, Skype, Teams and Xbox Live.

The SPARC organization is responsible for strategy, planning and architecture pathfinding, and manages Azure’s hardware roadmap from architecture concept, through production for Microsoft’s current and future offerings. The LEAP team within SPARC is at the forefront of systems architecture and technology pathfinding spanning compute, memory, storage, and system interconnects. Drawing on deep insights of workloads, emerging technology trends, and focused industry engagements, LEAP team’s charter is to define and evaluate novel systems architecture innovations through hardware/software co-design and advance them through technical readiness for productization.

The LEAP team is seeking a Principal Software Engineer who will be part of the team to develop hardware/software co-design, software prototyping, and building reference designs to enable pathfinding for novel system architecture spanning OS(Windows/Linux) memory management, memory overcommit, memory disaggregation, data acceleration and resource virtualization capabilities.

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.

Required/Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of experience in systems software (OS kernel, memory management, I/O stacks, Virtualization) with demonstrated track record of success, guiding architecture and software enabling.
• 5+ years of experience leading significant hardware/software co-design projects involving CPU and/or systems architecture and influencing technical direction.

Other Requirements:

• Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Knowledge of Windows or Linux Operating System internals and memory management.
• Deep expertise in CPU, memory and I/O along with virtualization of hardware and software architecture.
• Skilled in partnering and influencing architects, hardware engineers, and software leads.
• Ability to manage through ambiguity, bringing clarity and results orientation to engage and energize collaborators and stakeholders.
• Collaboration skills, teamwork, and sense of presumed responsibility.
• Verbal and written communication skills, and ability to articulate and engage with both technical and non-technical stakeholders at all levels.
• Experience leading and driving complex projects with respect and integrity, including those with multiple workstreams spanning different business and technical disciplines.
• Intellectual curiosity and passion about learning and deploying new technologies.
• Problem-solving skills, analytical capabilities, and attention to detail.

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $139,900 - $274,800 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until June 26th, 2025.

#AHSI #SPARC

• Carry substantial technical responsibilities requiring deep expertise in system software memory management internals, virtualization technologies, virtual machine memory management, and advanced memory tiering/pooling architectures such as CXL and HBM.

• Engage with Azure operators and customers to understand current and emerging challenges, gathering insights to inform solution development.

• Identify and evaluate promising technologies that address critical issues relevant to Azure’s business; lead development of capable proof-of-concepts to reduce productization risks.

• Partner with ecosystem collaborators and internal stakeholders to accelerate innovation and bring validated technologies to production in Azure data centers.

• Lead full system software prototyping efforts to explore and validate memory tiering and pooling solutions tailored for Azure workloads and deployment environments.

• Perform in-depth workload characterization and correlation to uncover system optimization opportunities and improve performance and efficiency.

• Influence the design of future hardware architectures (3–6 years out) through data-driven analysis, insights, and strategic recommendations.

• Co-design systems innovations in close collaboration with hardware, software, and workload experts; build capable proof-of-concepts, develop high-quality reference software, and drive end-to-end innovation from concept through to productization.