Principal Hardware Engineer

Overview

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 engineers to help achieve that mission.

As Microsoft's cloud business continues to grow the ability to deploy new offerings and hardware infrastructure on time, in high volume with high quality and lowest cost is of paramount importance. To achieve this goal, the Cloud Hardware Systems Engineering (CHSE) team is instrumental in defining and delivering operational measures of success for hardware manufacturing, improving the planning process, quality, delivery, scale and sustainability related to Microsoft cloud hardware. We are looking for seasoned engineers with a dedicated passion for customer focused solutions, insight and industry knowledge to envision and implement future technical solutions that will manage and optimize the Cloud infrastructure.

We are looking for a Principal Hardware Engineer to join the team.

#SCHIE #azurehwjobs #CHSE

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end product delivery from concept through launch, ensuring technical excellence and timely execution.
• Drive cross-functional technical decision-making across architecture, silicon, firmware, hardware, OS, validation, and manufacturing teams.
• Define and manage program baselines in partnership with TPMs, including scope, schedule, budget, and change control.
• Own quality of design deliverables and ensure alignment with system-level requirements and performance goals.
• Influence platform, rack, and datacenter-level solutions for next-generation AI infrastructure.
• Evaluate and de-risk NUDD (New, Unique, Different, Difficult) technologies and features through structured analysis and mitigation planning.
• Collaborate with internal and external partners-including open-source communities-to integrate innovative technologies seamlessly.
• Articulate architectural and design tradeoffs across electrical, mechanical, thermal, and cost dimensions to optimize for TCO, performance, and scalability.
• Work closely with validation engineering team, systems engineering team and manufacturing engineering team to drive issues found during test to closure

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 7+ years technical engineering experience
  • OR Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience
  • OR equivalent experience.

Other Requirements:

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:

• 10+ years of relevant experience in system (compute, storage, networking, and/or accelerator) level design and/or implementation across the hardware development lifecycle.
• 10+ years of hands-on experience in server hardware architecture, design, and development with solid understanding of hardware, firmware, and Operating System (OS).
• Ability to work across multiple disciplines (hardware, firmware, software, and/or data center infrastructure) to identify risks, drive discussions, detail system tradeoffs, and assess impact.
• Proven experience in AI and GPU system development, including design, validation, and deployment at scale.
• Broad technical expertise across electrical, mechanical, thermal, power, signal integrity, and system security domains.
• Deep understanding of high-volume silicon (SoCs, GPUs, FPGAs), compute, storage, and networking systems, including manufacturing and deployment.
• Hands-on experience with high-speed interfaces such as PCIe, DDR, and Ethernet, and familiarity with system firmware (BIOS, BMC) and OS-level integration (Windows and/or Linux).
• Strong background in datacenter-scale operations and infrastructure, including system-level debugging and root cause analysis.
• Demonstrated ability to manage hardware programs through the full product lifecycle, from concept to production.
• Familiarity with AI training and inference workloads, and the ability to evaluate system designs based on TCO, performance per watt, and performance per dollar.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to lead cross-functional teams and influence technical direction.

Hardware Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $139,900 - $274,800 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 $188,000 - $304,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:


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.