Principal Software Architect

$161,600 - $314,400/Yr

Microsoft - Mountain View, CA

Full-time - Principal

Mountain View, CA

5,001-10,000 employees

Publishing Industries

About the position

The Principal Software Architect role at Microsoft is a pivotal position within the Leading-Edge Architecture Pathfinding (LEAP) team, part of the Strategic Planning and Architecture (SPARC) organization. This role focuses on innovating hardware and systems designs to enhance Microsoft's cloud growth, particularly within Azure Hardware Systems & Infrastructure. The architect will lead efforts in evaluating and enabling software for hardware technologies, optimizing infrastructure, and accelerating workloads, while collaborating across teams to drive innovations from concept to productization.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture evaluation, pathfinding, and software enabling acceleration of hardware technologies.
• Identify promising technologies to address current and emerging problems relevant for Azure business.
• Collaborate with roadmap planners, product architects, and hardware/software engineering teams to implement solutions in Azure data centers.
• Lead a team of software engineers in developing end-to-end software proof-of-concepts for novel hardware technologies.
• Develop performance analysis methodologies and tools to evaluate systems innovations.
• Engage with Azure's supplier ecosystem to deliver on the team's charter.
• Influence and shape hardware architecture targeting a three-to-six-year timeframe.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical discipline.
• 8+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python.
• 7+ years of experience in Windows systems software, including operating system kernel, memory management, and I/O stacks.
• 7+ years of experience leading hardware/software co-design projects.

Nice-to-haves

• Deep expertise in Windows and Hypervisor technologies and internals.
• Expertise in CPU, memory, and I/O virtualization hardware and software architecture.
• Strong collaboration skills and ability to influence architects and engineers.
• Experience leading complex projects across multiple workstreams.
• Intellectual curiosity and passion for learning new technologies.

Benefits

• Health insurance
• 401k
• Paid holidays
• Flexible scheduling
• Professional development
• Tuition reimbursement