Principal Hardware Engineer

Do you want to be at the forefront of innovating the latest hardware designs to propel Microsoft’s cloud growth? Are you seeking a unique career opportunity that combines both technical capabilities, cross team collaboration, with business insight and strategy?  

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. 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 and be a part of the organization 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.   SPARC is hiring a Principal Hardware Engineer. 

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. 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. 

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. 

Required Qualifications 

• 10+ years of technical engineering experience

  • OR Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 8+ years of technical engineering experience

  • OR Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 5+ years of technical engineering experience

  • OR Doctorate degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 4+ years of technical engineering experience.

• 10+ years of professional experience in between architecture, design & validation of SOC internal blocks. SOCs can be CPU, GPU or networking devices.  

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/Additional Qualifications:

• Proven and demonstrable skill in System Verilog, Synthesis tools, debug & fix pre-silicon timing paths, UVM, C, Python etc; Knowledge of Rust is good to have. 
• Familiar with PCIe architecture as well as server architectures is a huge plus.  
• Ability to debug and resolve issues spanning multiple subsystems.   
• Must be open to learn newer areas and ability to wear multiple hats to seamlessly transition between architecture, design & validation.
• Solid problem solving, debugging and troubleshooting skills, advanced design and development skills.
• BS/MS in Computer Science/Engineering OR Electrical Engineering OR equivalent industry experience. 

Hardware Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $137,600 - $267,000 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 $180,400 - $294,000 per year.

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

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until January 20, 2025. 

• Architect infrastructure around core technologies (eg. accelerator modules) to work with the rest of the infrastructure based on throughput and latency requirements.  

• Proven experience and expertise in pre-silicon HW design and validation. 

• Proven ability to debug post-silicon is a plus.  

• Solid FW/SW background is a huge plus to seamlessly work with FW/SW teams to architect & design optimal solutions.  

• Ability to work with open ended problem statements or figuring out the problem statement from large data set of fleet telemetry.
• Embody our and