{"id":2558739,"url":"https://alion.io/job/microsoft-principal-software-engineer-hwsw-in-fleet-infrastructure","title":"Principal Software Engineer - HW/SW in Fleet Infrastructure","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":80,"open_postings":292,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.791,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":28,"computed_at":"2026-10-23T05:54:15Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","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":["Redmond, 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":12,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"C#","optional":false},{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Platform Engineering","optional":true}],"status":"closed","first_seen_at":"2026-07-24T15:13:38Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-14","last_verified_at":"2026-10-22T05:08:30Z","board_verified":false,"closed_at":"2026-10-22T05:08:30Z","days_open":89,"trust":{"level":"not_scored","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":89},"description":"OverviewThe Fleet & Capacity organization within Microsoft 365 Core Platform is responsible for ensuring the right infrastructure is available in the right places at the right time to support Microsoft 365 services at hyperscale. The team drives capacity strategy, hardware platform readiness, fleet health, reliability engineering, lifecycle management, and operational excellence across Microsoft’s global cloud infrastructure.\nWe are looking for a Principal Software Engineer - HW/SW in Fleet Infrastructure to provide technical leadership for the evolution of Substrate’s hardware and firmware platforms. In this role, you will shape New Product Introduction strategy, hardware and firmware health architecture, live-site reliability, and the future direction of AI-optimized infrastructure.\nYou will work across Microsoft 365, Azure infrastructure, hardware engineering teams, silicon providers, OEM(original equipment manufacturer)/ODM (original design manufacturer) partners, and operations organizations to define architecture, influence platform strategy, and solve complex infrastructure problems at global scale.\nThis role requires strong technical depth, architectural judgment, and the ability to create clarity across highly ambiguous, cross-organizational problems. Internal guidance for Principal engineers emphasizes broad scope, cross-team architecture leadership, strategic influence, and creating conditions for successful collaboration across teams.\nThis position is based in Redmond, Washington and requires the employee be in the office a minimum of 3 days per week.\nMicrosoft’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.\nResponsibilities\nPartner with broad teams to design, develop, validate, debug, and optimize infrastructure software across OS, firmware, fleet health, hardware repair, telemetry, and monitoring areas.\n\nDefine the technical strategy and architecture for New Product Introduction across Microsoft 365 fleet infrastructure, including platform bring-up, validation, deployment readiness, and lifecycle management.\n\nLead hardware and firmware reliability architecture, including health telemetry, diagnostics, failure detection, predictive insights, and remediation automation.\n\nDrive failure analysis and root cause investigation for critical live-site incidents involving hardware, firmware, OS, storage, networking, or infrastructure platforms, and drive durable improvements that reduce recurrence.\n\nPartner across Microsoft 365, Azure Hardware Systems, silicon vendors, OEM/ODM partners, firmware teams, and operations organizations to improve platform reliability, scalability, and serviceability.\n\nEstablish engineering standards, observability patterns, and operational mechanisms that improve fleet availability, reduce deployment risk, and strengthen hyperscale infrastructure operations.\n\nEvolve M365 substrate infrastructure strategy for AI and agentic workloads across compute, memory, storage, and networking domains.\n\nInfluence cross-organizational technical direction, communicate complex tradeoffs clearly, and help teams make durable architecture decisions.\n\nMentor early in career engineers.\n\nEmbody Microsoft’s culture and values.\n\nQualifications\nRequired Qualifications:\nBachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or PythonOR equivalent experience.\n\nOther Requirements:\nAbility 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:\nMicrosoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.\nPreferred Qualifications:\nMaster'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 PythonOR Bachelor'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 \nOR equivalent experience.\n\nExperience leading architecture and technical strategy for large-scale distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, or hyperscale service platforms.\nDeep experience with hardware platforms, firmware, OS, drivers, datacenter infrastructure software, storage systems, networking, or platform software.\nExperience with New Product Introduction, platform validation, deployment readiness, lifecycle management, or fleet-scale hardware operations.\nExperience on hyperscale fleet live site, using telemetry, observability, failure analysis, predictive diagnostics, or automation to improve infrastructure reliability.\nExperience working with silicon providers, hardware vendors, OEMs, ODMs, firmware teams, or platform engineering organizations.\nExperience influencing cross-organizational engineering strategy and driving complex technical programs across multiple teams.\nCommunication skills with the ability to explain technical tradeoffs to senior engineering and business leaders. \nMicrosoft Secure environment/US Gov clouds. \n#M365Core #FleetAndCapacity #AIInfrastructure #HardwareReliability #CloudInfrastructure\nSoftware 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":7172,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":12,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":true},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Console Games","Cloud Platforms (IaaS & PaaS)","Gaming Consoles","Developer Tools"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-14T19:56:39Z"},{"event":"close","at":"2026-10-22T05:08:30Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":null,"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":274800,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/microsoft-principal-software-engineer-hwsw-in-fleet-infrastructure","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/microsoft-principal-software-engineer-hwsw-in-fleet-infrastructure.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-23T08:25:47Z","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_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":13506,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-24T00:00:00Z"}},"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-software-engineer-hwsw-in-fleet-infrastructure"},{"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-software-engineer-hwsw-in-fleet-infrastructure"},{"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-software-engineer-hwsw-in-fleet-infrastructure"},{"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-software-engineer-hwsw-in-fleet-infrastructure\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fmicrosoft-principal-software-engineer-hwsw-in-fleet-infrastructure"}]}