Principal Software Engineer

Microsoft's Azure Core organization is responsible for the foundational infrastructure that powers one of the world's largest cloud platforms. We build the systems that deliver industry-leading performance, security, reliability, and efficiency across Azure's compute, networking, and storage services.

We seeking a Principal Software Engineer to help evolve Microsoft’s high-performance, security-critical virtualization platform, with a focus on virtualizing devices such as GPUs and NVMe controllers. In this role, you will shape foundational technology across the virtualization platform used by Hyper-V, Azure, Windows, Linux, and containers.

This is a highly technical systems engineering role focused on building software at the hardware/software boundary. You will collaborate closely with architects, firmware engineers, hardware designers, and platform teams to deliver scalable, secure, and high-performance infrastructure capabilities that power Azure at hyperscale.

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.

• Define architecture and deliver foundational capabilities as a key technical leader within Microsoft’s virtualization platform.
• Design, implement, and deliver innovative features across Microsoft’s virtualization platform, focused on device virtualization.
• Drive the development of low-level systems software spanning operating systems, virtualization, host infrastructure, device management, and DPU-host interaction layers.
• Design and implement high-performance networking and storage dataplane capabilities, optimizing for throughput, latency, scalability, reliability, and resource efficiency at hyperscale.
• Partner with hardware architects, firmware engineers, and platform software teams to deliver tightly integrated hardware/software solutions for next-generation Azure infrastructure platforms.
• Lead technical execution for complex, cross-functional initiatives, driving design alignment, implementation quality, and successful delivery across multiple engineering teams.
• Identify and resolve complex system-level challenges involving performance, reliability, diagnosability, scalability, and security across the platform stack.
• Drive technical design reviews and contribute to architectural direction within Azure Boost and host platform infrastructure, providing deep expertise in systems software and platform architecture.
• Develop software that interfaces directly with DPUs, accelerators, PCIe devices, virtualization technologies, and platform management subsystems.
• Establish engineering best practices for software quality, testing, validation, observability, and operational readiness in large-scale production environments.
• Collaborate across Azure Core, networking, storage, silicon, and platform engineering teams to influence technical direction and improve platform capabilities.
• Mentor and develop engineers through technical leadership, design reviews, code reviews, and hands-on guidance.
• Stay current on industry advancements in systems software, virtualization, networking, storage, and hardware acceleration technologies, incorporating relevant innovations into Azure platform designs. 

Required Qualifications:

Software Engineering IC6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $165,600 - $296,400 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 $220,800 - $331,200 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.