Principal Software Engineer

Technology, Data & Digital · Software & Web Development · Software Engineering

In short

Microsoft's Azure Core is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to enhance its high-performance and security-critical virtualization platform, focusing on device virtualization like GPUs and NVMe controllers. This role involves building foundational technology for Hyper-V, Azure, Windows, Linux, and containers, requiring deep expertise in low-level systems software and hardware/software boundary development.

Responsibilities

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.

Requirements

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.
Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements.
Must pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Desired Qualifications

Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 12+ 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 15+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.
Experience developing low-level systems software, including operating systems, kernel components, hypervisors, virtualization platforms, device drivers, or platform infrastructure services.
Experience owning and delivering significant portions of a DPU, SmartNIC, host platform, or accelerator software stack.
Experience with hardware acceleration technologies and interfaces such as PCIe, DMA, SR-IOV, RDMA, NVMe, IOMMU, hardware offloads, and device virtualization.
Experience designing software at the hardware/software boundary and collaborating closely with firmware, silicon, platform architecture, and hardware engineering teams.
Experience developing software in C/C++ and/or Rust for performance-critical systems.
Experience building, debugging, and operating large-scale cloud infrastructure systems in production environments.
Systems performance analysis and troubleshooting skills, including root cause analysis of complex platform, networking, storage, or virtualization issues.
Understanding of high-performance networking dataplanes, storage dataplanes, and I/O subsystems, including techniques for optimizing latency, throughput, scalability, and resource efficiency.
Familiarity with Linux and Windows internals, virtualization technologies, container platforms, and cloud infrastructure architectures.
Demonstrated ability to drive technical design and execution across multiple engineering teams through architecture reviews, design leadership, and hands-on technical contributions.

Benefits

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.

Skills

C++CC#PythonRust

#azure#cloud#infrastructure#virtualization#hardware#software#performance#security#reliability#efficiency#networking#storage#gpu#nvme#dpu

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Company

Microsoft

Job Posted

1 day ago

Employment Type

Full Time

Work mode

Remote

Salary

US$165,600–331,200 · Negotiable

Experience Level

Senior

Locations

United States

Qualification

Bachelor, Master

Applicants

Be an early applicant

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