Principal HW/SW Silicon Architect

**Overview**

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 passionate engineers to help achieve that mission.

The Compute Silicon & Manufacturing Engineering (*CSME*) organization within SCHIE is responsible for design, development, manufacturing and packaging of Microsoft's state-of-the-art computer chips, notably the Azure Cobalt. Our solutions provide sustainable strategic advantage to Microsoft and enable our customers to achieve more.

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 Silicon IP and Custom Products (*SCIPS*)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 seasoned 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 **Principal HW/SW Silicon Architect** to join the team.

**Responsibilities**

• Lead silicon accelerator HW/SW co-design including software prototyping and authoring programming guides and software architecture specifications.
• Develop deep insights through workload characterization and correlation to identify systems optimization opportunities.
• Collaborate with diverse workload experts across Microsoft to engineer TCO-optimized solutions for Azure general-purpose and specialized compute fleet.
• Influence and shape hardware architecture and industry alignment, targeting three-to-six-year timeframe, with data-driven analysis, insights and recommendations.

**Qualifications**

**Required/minimum qualifications**

• Doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 3+ years technical engineering experience OR Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience OR equivalent experience.

**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.
• This 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 US. 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.

**Preferred Qualifications:**

• 3+ years of experience in systems software (OS kernel, memory management, I/O stacks, Virtualization) with demonstrated track record of success, guiding architecture and software enabling.
• 3+ years of experience leading significant hardware/software co-design projects involving CPU and/or systems architecture and influencing technical direction.
• 3+ years experience in one or more of the following fields
• + Lossless Data compression algorithms (such as Deflate or Zstd)

+ Image/Video compression algorithms

• Deep expertise in Windows Operating System internals and OS memory management and Virtual Machine memory management principles.
• Deep expertise in CPU, memory and I/O along with virtualization of hardware and software architecture
• Skilled in partnering and influencing architects, hardware engineers, and software leads
• Experience in working with AI tools in the day-to-day work

#SCHIE #CSME

Silicon Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $139,900 - $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.

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**.**