Responsibilities
- Lead System Design & Architecture: Drive architecture discussions, author design documents, and design scalable platform components for AI-native, agentic, and distributed systems, balancing security, compliance, reliability, long-term sustainability, and delivery.
- Deliver High-Quality Code: Write extensible, maintainable, and performant code across platform and runtime components. Debug complex production issues, optimize distributed systems, review code, and uphold high engineering standards.
- Build AI-Native Platform Capabilities: Design and develop foundational capabilities that enable AI agents to reason, plan, orchestrate, and execute tasks across customer workflows, including integration with AI models, agent frameworks, workflow engines, and cloud services.
- Drive Implementation & Deployment: Lead project planning and experimentation, validate the impact of changes, and ensure safe and reliable deployment of platform capabilities across globally distributed environments.
- Ensure Reliability & Operational Excellence: Improve the performance, reliability, and scalability of mission-critical cloud services. Maintain live-site health, develop incident response playbooks, lead root cause analyses (RCAs), and implement systemic improvements that strengthen service reliability.
- Advance Engineering Tools & Practices: Build developer tools and automation that improve engineering velocity and AI-augmented development workflows. Apply data and telemetry to identify opportunities, guide technical decisions, and continuously improve the platform.
- Shape Product & Technical Strategy: Influence the product roadmap and architecture by combining customer feedback, telemetry, business goals, and emerging AI technologies to determine where the platform should evolve.
- Foster Cross-Team Alignment: Collaborate across Core AI and partner engineering and product teams to deliver cohesive end-to-end experiences and establish shared technical direction across distributed systems, AI orchestration, and cloud platform capabilities.
- Build Core Capabilities: Design reusable platform services and building blocks spanning distributed systems, event-driven architectures, stateful runtimes, workflow automation, enterprise integration, and AI orchestration to accelerate innovation and team velocity.
Qualifications
- 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.
- Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.
- 4+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, or Python.
- 4+ years of experience designing, building, and operating production-grade software and services at scale
- Experience designing, building, and shipping cloud-scale distributed systems, workflow engines, platform services, or event-driven architectures.
- Understanding of cloud platforms such as Azure, AWS, or GCP.
- Experience with AI/LLM-based systems, agent frameworks, reasoning or orchestration systems, or integrating AI capabilities into production services.
- Hands-on experience developing in AI-enhanced environments using tools such as GitHub Copilot or similar.
- Ability to clearly articulate complex technical concepts and collaborate across engineering and product organizations
Software Engineering IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $102,100 - $202,200 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 $133,800 - $219,200 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
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, or equivalent experience
- 2+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
- Ability to pass Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter
- Ability to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements
- 4+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages including C, C++, C#, Java, or Python
- 4+ years of experience designing, building, and operating production-grade software and services at scale
- Experience designing, building, and shipping cloud-scale distributed systems, workflow engines, platform services, or event-driven architectures
- Understanding of cloud platforms such as Azure, AWS, or GCP
- Experience with AI/LLM-based systems, agent frameworks, reasoning or orchestration systems, or integrating AI capabilities into production services
- Hands-on experience developing in AI-enhanced environments using GitHub Copilot or similar tools
- Ability to articulate complex technical concepts clearly and collaborate across engineering and product organizations
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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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is presented as broadly competitive overall, with clear role/level/location variation and an emphasis on using posted ranges and band information for apples-to-apples comparisons.
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Retirement Support — Retirement benefits are described as a standout, highlighted by a strong 401(k) match structure and immediate vesting, plus additional plan features for tax-advantaged saving.
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Parental & Family Support — Family-oriented benefits are portrayed as a meaningful strength, with substantial paid parental leave and added supports like back-up care and adoption/surrogacy assistance.
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.







