Senior Principal Storage Systems Engineer

Overview

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 achieve 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. In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

Join the Strategic Planning and Architecture (SPARC) team within Microsoft's Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure (AHSI) organization, the team behind Microsoft's expanding Cloud Infrastructure and for powering Microsoft's "Intelligent Cloud" mission. Microsoft delivers more than 200 online services to more than one billion individuals worldwide, and AHSI is the team behind our expanding cloud infrastructure. We deliver the core infrastructure and foundational technologies for Microsoft's cloud businesses including Microsoft Azure, Bing, MSN, Office 365, OneDrive, Skype, Teams and Xbox Live.

As part of the Systems Planning and Architecture (SPARC) group, you will help with pathfinding and architecture for future compute platforms, storage and related technologies that create advantages for Azure and Microsoft. You will collaborate across the Azure organization to evaluate next-generation datacenter technologies and influence Azure product roadmaps for both Microsoft and 3rd party silicon and systems.

We are looking for a Senior Principal Storage Systems Engineer to join our team!

Responsibilities

• Drive pathfinding initiatives to identify and quantify optimization opportunities across distributed and disaggregated storage and memory architectures for computing and AI inferencing systems.
• Conduct in-depth architectural analysis of next-generation storage technologies, leveraging a strong understanding of workloads across key Azure segments
• Collaborate cross-functionally to influence technology direction and contribute to long-term strategic planning for evolving datacenter architectures.
• Lead architectural exploration of emerging technologies through robust proof-of-concepts (PoCs) and end-to-end prototyping, aligned with product segments and real-world usage scenarios.
• Partner with hardware design and software enablement teams to mature innovations from concept validation to production-ready solutions.
• Engage with Azure operators and customers to identify current challenges and anticipate emerging needs across the platform.
• Evaluate and identify promising technologies aligned with Azure business priorities, engage ecosystem partners, and de-risk productization through capable PoCs.
• Work across organizational boundaries with roadmap planners, product architects, and hardware and software engineering teams to successfully integrate innovative solutions into Azure datacenters.

Qualifications

Required/minimum qualifications

• Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 9+ years technical engineering experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 11+ years technical engineering experience OR equivalent experience

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

• 10+ years of experience with system performance evaluation using industry standard benchmarks and/or common cloud workloads

• 10+ years of experience with significant hardware/software co-design projects involving CPU and/or systems architecture and influencing technical direction.

• Prior experience developing and driving cloud technologies for improved TCO/$ and TCO/$/performance.

• Intellectual curiosity and passion about learning and deploying new technologies.

• Verbal and written communication skills and ability to engage technical & non-technical peers

• Experience contributing to complex projects with respect and integrity, including those with multiple workstreams spanning different business and technical disciplines.
• Understanding of compute and storage systems in the cloud, including storage and network technologies, experience with software-defined storage and distributed file systems.

• Deep understanding of AI inference systems and associated software, and emerging approaches to orchestrate tiered memory and storage capabilities for distributed serving and KV caching for agentic systems.

• Deep expertise in AI scale-up and scale-out networking/interconnect architectures, along with a good understanding of memory/storage technologies spanning HBM, LPDDR, HBF, etc.

• Skilled in partnering and influencing architects, hardware engineers, and software leads

• Experience with gathering and analyzing system telemetry and low-level performance counters to identify and root-cause performance bottlenecks.

• Problem-solving skills, analytical capabilities, and attention to detail
• Ability to manage through ambiguity, teamwork, and sense of presumed responsibility

Hardware Engineering IC6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $163,000 - $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:
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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.