{"id":1984358,"url":"https://alion.io/job/microsoft-principal-ai-network-technical-lead","title":"Principal AI Network Technical Lead","company":{"id":18,"name":"Microsoft","domain":"microsoft.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/microsoft","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Eightfold","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":59,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-10-07T05:47:15Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Washington, United States","Mountain View, United States","Austin, United States","Hillsboro, United States","Raleigh, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":142800,"max":274800,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":274800},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"OneDrive","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-08T20:22:20Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-06","last_verified_at":"2026-10-08T02:17:29Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":29,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":29},"description":"OverviewMicrosoft 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 engineers to help achieve that mission.\nAs 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 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.\nWe are looking for a Principal AI Network Technical Lead to join the team.\n#SCHIE\nResponsibilities\nOwn end-to-end development, validation, deployment, and sustaining of Microsoft's AI scale-up switch platforms.\n\nDrive network switch requirements, specifications, and technical decisions based on AI workload and system requirements.\n\nLead switch vendor selection, RFIs/RFQs/RFPs, technical evaluations, and supplier engagement strategy.\n\nOwn switch hardware development including ASICs, SerDes, retimers, connectors, SI/PI, mechanical, thermal, and power design.\n\nDrive development of next-generation optical scale-up solutions including OCI, XPO, CPO, fiber management, and optical interconnect technologies.\n\nPartner with software teams on SONiC, control plane, telemetry, diagnostics, fleet management, and operational readiness.\n\nLead switch bring-up, validation, DVT/PVT, system integration, qualification, and production readiness activities.\n\nOwn integration of scale-up switches into compute racks, switch racks, pods, and AI clusters.\n\nDrive ODM/JDM development models and manage technical engagement with switch vendors, ODMs, and ecosystem partners.\n\nLead cross-functional teams spanning networking, systems, silicon, optics, firmware, software, operations, and manufacturing.\n\nDrive system-level optimization across performance, reliability, serviceability, manufacturability, power, cost, and time-to-market.\n\nServe as the technical lead for Microsoft's next-generation AI scale-up switch solutions and networking platforms.\n\nQualifications\nRequired Qualifications:\nMaster's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 7+ years technical engineering experienceOR Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience\nOR equivalent experience.\n\nOther Requirements:\nAbility to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements is required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to, the following specialized security screening:\n\nMicrosoft Cloud Background Check. This position is required to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.\n\nThis role will require access to information that is controlled for export under export control regulations, potentially under the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations or Export Administration Regulations, the EU Dual Use Regulation, and/or other export control regulations. As a condition of employment, the successful candidate will be required to provide either proof of their country of citizenship or proof of their U.S. permanent residency or other protected status (e.g., under 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3)) for assessment of eligibility to access the export-controlled information. To meet this legal requirement, and as a condition of employment, the successful candidate’s citizenship will be verified with a valid passport. Lawful permanent residents, refugees, and asylees may verify status using other documents, where applicable.\n\nPreferred Qualifications:\n10+ years of experience in networking, AI infrastructure, or large-scale system architecture. \n10+ years of relevant experience in system (compute, storage, networking, and/or accelerator) level design and/or implementation across the hardware development lifecycle. \n10+ years of hands-on experience in server hardware architecture, design, and development with solid understanding of hardware, firmware, and Operating System (OS). \nProven experience delivering AI and GPU-based systems to production. \nExperience developing high-performance network switches, AI fabrics, or hyperscale networking solutions. \nDeep understanding of scale-up and scale-out networks, Ethernet switching, RDMA/RoCE, and SONiC. \nKnowledge of switch ASICs, 112G/224G SerDes, PAM4, retimers, PHYs, and high-speed interconnects. \nExperience with optical networking technologies such as OCI, XPO, CPO, OBO, and DR optics. \nExperience leading hardware development from architecture through validation and production. \nFamiliarity with rack-scale systems, power, thermal, reliability, and serviceability design. \nExperience working with ODM/JDM partners and external suppliers. \nProven ability to lead cross-functional teams across hardware, firmware, software, and systems engineering. \nBS / MS in Electrical/Computer Engineering or equivalent industry experience.\nHardware Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $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.\nCertain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:\nhttps://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay\nThis position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.\nMicrosoft 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.","description_format":"text","description_chars":7380,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":true},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Console Games","Cloud Platforms (IaaS & PaaS)","Gaming Consoles","Developer Tools"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-07T01:14:50Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":28,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.515,"p_room":0.55,"age_days":28,"expected_fill_days":20,"reasons":["conf:2","stale_co","velocity","win:tail","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-07T05:47:15Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":274800,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/microsoft-principal-ai-network-technical-lead","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/microsoft-principal-ai-network-technical-lead.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-08T02:35:26Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":4477,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":523,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-09T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":18},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=18"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fmicrosoft-principal-ai-network-technical-lead"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fmicrosoft-principal-ai-network-technical-lead"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fmicrosoft-principal-ai-network-technical-lead"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/microsoft-principal-ai-network-technical-lead\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fmicrosoft-principal-ai-network-technical-lead"}]}