Principal Software Engineer

Microsoft Silicon, Cloud Hardware, and Infrastructure Engineering (SCHIE) is the team behind Microsoft’s expanding Cloud Infrastructure and responsible for powering Microsoft’s “Intelligent Cloud” mission. SCHIE delivers the core infrastructure and foundational technologies for Microsoft's over 200 online businesses including Bing, MSN, Office 365, Xbox Live, Teams, OneDrive, and the Microsoft Azure platform globally with our server and data center infrastructure, security and compliance, operations, globalization, and manageability solutions. Our focus is on smart growth, high efficiency, and delivering a trusted experience to customers and partners worldwide and we are looking for passionate, high-energy engineers to help achieve that mission.

The Azure Data Processing Unit (DPU) team brings together state-of-the-art software and hardware expertise to create a highly programmable and high-performance chip with the capability to efficiently handle large data volumes. Thanks to its integrated design, this solution empowers Azure to develop solutions for solving the next generation problems with increased agility and performance leveraging the DPU’s compute, storage, and networking capabilities.

As a Principal Software Engineer in the DPU Networking software team, you will design, develop, deploy and support networking packet forwarding and control plane functions that enable high performance data processing within various network endpoints in Azure data centers. You will work as part of a dynamic, multi-talented team of engineers from across the world. You would collaborate with technical stakeholders in a cross functional team manner and contribute towards the success of multiple projects and initiatives across the organization. This opportunity will allow you to develop new solutions for the Azure fleet, participate in the design of cutting-edge networking solutions and hone your design and performance optimization skills.

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

• Collaborate with stakeholders to understand business needs and translate them into technical requirements and solutions.
• Work across team and organizational boundaries to drive clarity and alignment.
• Drive identification of dependencies and the development of design documents for a product, application, service, or platform.
• Drive, create, implement, optimize, debug, refactor, and reuse code to establish and improve performance and maintainability, effectiveness, and return on investment (ROI).
• Conduct research, stay updated with the latest industry trends, and experiment with cutting-edge technologies to drive innovation.
• Leverage subject-matter expertise of product features and partner with appropriate stakeholders (e.g., project managers) to drive a workgroup's project plans, release plans, and work items.
• Act as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI) and guide other engineers by developing and following the playbook, working on call to monitor system/product/service for degradation, downtime, or interruptions, alerting stakeholders about status and initiating actions to restore system/product/service for simple and complex problems when appropriate.
• Proactively seek new knowledge and adapt to new trends, technical solutions, and patterns that will improve the availability, reliability, efficiency, observability, and performance of products while also driving consistency in monitoring and operations at scale.
• Coach and mentor fellow team members.
• Demonstrate effective communication skills and a passion for delivering scalable solutions through a diverse team of engineers.
• Embody our Culture and Values.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or related technical discipline 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.
• 4+ years of experience in software design and coding of Layer2/L3/L4 ethernet/IP networking data plane packet forwarding and control plane processing functions within host OS or a programmable NIC or network switches and routers.

Other Qualifications

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

• Experience in developing networking software stack involving technologies such as Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA), RoCEv2 and Software Defined Network (SDN).
• Experience in developing networking software on DPUs or programmable NICs or other hardware offload architectures.
• Experience in developing networking software for the NIC Datapath and network driver.
• Experience in developing technologies for reliable data transfer across network with efficient fabric utilization and deterministic latency.
• CI/CD Experience: Knowledge of Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) practices for streamlined software development and deployment processes.
• Scripting for Developer Tools: Proficiency in scripting languages to build and enhance developer tools, automating repetitive tasks and improving workflow efficiency.

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $133,600 - $256,800 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 $173,200 - $282,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: US corporate pay information | Microsoft Careers.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, 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 and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.