Senior Hardware Systems Engineer
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 15, 2026. First seen by Alion on Sep 10, 2026. Microsoft scores B on the Alion truth index.
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 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 CHSE (Cloud Hardware Systems Engineering) 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 experienced 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 Senior Hardware Systems Engineer to lead platform validation and debug activities. As a Senior Hardware Systems Engineer, you will architect and develop system validation plans for Azure's leading HW solutions by incorporating advanced technologies, datacenter use cases and by working across different engineering functions.
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 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.
Responsibilities
- Architect and develop end-to-end validation strategies from post-silicon environments through platform bring-up, characterization, and production deployment with a goal to identify hardware, firmware, and system-level reliability issues as early as possible
- Partner closely with Architecture, Hardware, Firmware, Security, Manufacturing, Performance Engineering, and Cloud Infrastructure teams to influence platform requirements and readiness.
- Drive execution across multiple programs, balancing deep technical contribution with broad organizational impact.
- Develop automation and tooling for server validation in collaboration with other teams.
- Champion engineering excellence through data-driven decision making, technical reviews, risk management, and continuous improvement of qualification processes.
- Lead cross-functional investigations involving hardware, firmware, operating systems, drivers, and cloud services to identify root causes and define corrective actions.
- Drive resolution of the most complex platform issues impacting Azure platform availability, performance, and reliability.
- Influence component and platform architecture decisions by partnering with engineering, silicon, firmware, operating system, and service teams across Microsoft.
- Proactively seek new knowledge and adapts to new AI trends, technical solutions, and patterns that will improve the availability, reliability, efficiency, observability, and performance of products while also driving consistency in monitoring and operations at scale.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications:
Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 3+ years technical engineering experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 5+ years technical engineering experience OR equivalent experience.
- 5+ years of experience in programing languages such as Python/PowerShell or similar for automation development or integration.
- 3+ years of experience with hardware, firmware, and operating system interfaces and interdependencies, CPU and GPU architectures, and system design concepts.
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:
- Experience with technologies such as PCIe, memory subsystems, networking, power management, rack device management, and remote device management.
- Experience defining custom hardware tools for platform validation or debugging.
- Experience troubleshooting and debugging complex hardware and platform integration issues.
- Experience using debugging and measurement tools such as logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, and PCIe analyzers.
- Experience evaluating hardware designs, hardware/firmware/operating system interactions, platform configuration trade-offs, and end-to-end error flows.
- Experience with data analytics, data collection and aggregation, and dashboarding.
#SCHIE
Hardware Engineering IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800 - $234,700 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 $160,200 - $261,000 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
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.