Build the platform that helps every engineering team work better
We're hiring a Senior Software Engineer with strong distributed systems skills and a real interest in applying AI to engineering problems. You'll help build the next generation of our platform. Our goal is to make building and running software much simpler. That means turning complex infrastructure into capabilities that are easy to use, making reliability and security the default, and using AI to remove the work that slows engineers down.
Your work will reach well beyond a single service or feature. The components you build, the abstractions you help design, and the practices you help set will let teams ship better products faster and with more confidence. You'll work on hard problems in scalability, performance, observability, and developer experience. You'll also look for ways that intelligent automation can change how the platform is built and run.
This is a hands-on engineering role. You'll design and build production systems, own significant parts of the platform from end to end, and help shape technical direction through design reviews and collaboration with partner teams. You'll take ideas from early prototypes through to production use, and you'll help raise the bar for the engineers around you. We want someone who questions the usual way of doing things, sees opportunities in operational overhead, and pairs ambition with the discipline to build reliable systems. If you want to build technology that makes other engineers more productive, and help define platform engineering in an AI-enabled world, this role is for you.
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.
Responsibilities
Help shape technical direction. Contribute to the platform roadmap by finding gaps, proposing architectural improvements, and linking your designs to the most important needs of engineering teams.
• Apply AI to real engineering problems. Build AI-assisted and agent-based features for workflows like troubleshooting, testing, migrations, and operational analysis. Add evaluations and safeguards so engineers can trust the results.
• Treat the platform as a product. Work with partner teams to understand where they get stuck, test solutions with them, and turn common problems into self-service features that engineers want to use.
• Make safe delivery easier. Build automated validation, progressive rollout, observability, and recovery tools that let teams move fast without adding risk to production.
• Own your work end to end. Deliver significant platform features from design through implementation, adoption, and ongoing operation. Measure success by developer experience, reliability, performance, and cost.
• Collaborate across teams. Work with engineers and stakeholders on priorities and technical tradeoffs, help clarify ambiguous problems, and contribute to shared approaches that let teams evolve independently.
• Raise the engineering bar. Write high-quality code, take an active part in design reviews, mentor other engineers, and help build a culture of curiosity, accountability, and continuous improvement.
Qualifications
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 4+ 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. 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.
- Master'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 Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.
- Experience designing, building, and operating distributed systems or shared platform services in production.
- Experience building platform components or developer tools used by multiple teams that improved engineering productivity, service reliability, or operational efficiency.
- Hands-on experience integrating large language models or agents into engineering workflows, including tool integration, evaluation, permission boundaries, and human oversight.
- Experience building interfaces and workflows that work for both human developers and AI agents, with clear contracts, discoverable capabilities, and auditable execution.
- Depth in at least one platform area, such as service frameworks, data infrastructure, observability, CI/CD, experimentation, configuration management, or cloud infrastructure.
- Experience using telemetry, profiling, and production investigations to find bottlenecks and deliver measurable performance or cost improvements.
- Experience modernizing existing systems through incremental changes and migrations without disrupting customers or partners.
- A record of balancing exploration with practical delivery, turning promising prototypes into supported, production-ready platform features.
- Solid systems engineering fundamentals, including API design, concurrency, data management, failure handling, and performance analysis.
- An AI-forward engineering mindset: the ability to spot useful ways to apply AI, build them into production code, and judge how correct, secure, reliable, and cost-effective they are.
- A record of delivering complex technical projects from design through production, including making sound design decisions and working with other teams to get features adopted.
- Ability to turn ambiguous requirements and developer needs into practical, maintainable technical solutions.
- Solid communication and collaboration skills, including explaining technical tradeoffs clearly, contributing to design discussions, and helping other engineers grow.
Software Engineering IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800 - $234,700 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 $160,200 - $261,000 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
This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field and 4+ years of technical engineering experience, including coding in C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python; equivalent experience accepted.
- Ability to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.
- Master's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field and 6+ years of technical engineering experience, or bachelor's degree and 8+ years of experience; equivalent experience accepted.
- Experience designing, building, and operating distributed systems or shared platform services in production.
- Experience building platform components or developer tools used by multiple teams.
- Experience integrating large language models or agents into engineering workflows, including tool integration, evaluation, permission boundaries, and human oversight.
- Experience building interfaces and workflows for human developers and AI agents with clear contracts, discoverable capabilities, and auditable execution.
- Expertise in a platform area such as service frameworks, data infrastructure, observability, CI/CD, experimentation, configuration management, or cloud infrastructure.
- Experience using telemetry, profiling, and production investigations to improve performance or reduce costs.
- Experience modernizing existing systems through incremental changes and migrations without disrupting customers or partners.
- Experience turning prototypes into supported, production-ready platform features.
- Strong systems engineering fundamentals, including API design, concurrency, data management, failure handling, and performance analysis.
- Ability to apply AI in production and evaluate correctness, security, reliability, and cost-effectiveness.
- Experience delivering complex technical projects from design through production and driving adoption across teams.
- Ability to turn ambiguous requirements and developer needs into practical, maintainable technical solutions.
- Strong communication and collaboration skills, including explaining technical tradeoffs and mentoring engineers.
Microsoft Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Microsoft and has not been reviewed or approved by Microsoft.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage is described as comprehensive, with preventive care coverage, vision options, and annual out-of-pocket limits. Feedback suggests medical, mental-health, and disability support are a major strength of the package.
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Parental & Family Support — Family support is expansive, including parental leave, family caregiver leave, child-care assistance, family concierge services, fertility options, and college-advising support for eligible employees. Feedback suggests these benefits meaningfully ease caregiving and family planning demands.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellbeing resources include counseling and employee-assistance services, wellness reimbursements, product discounts, and charitable-matching programs. Feedback suggests these extras complement core benefits and support day-to-day quality of life.
Microsoft Insights
What We Do
At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our mission is grounded in both the world in which we live and the future we strive to create. Today, we live in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, and the transformation we are driving across our businesses is designed to enable Microsoft and our customers to thrive in this world.
