Senior Firmware Engineer
Microsoft
Microsoft Silicon and Cloud Hardware 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, Skype, 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 a passionate Senior Firmware Engineer to help achieve that mission. As Microsoft's cloud business continues to grow the ability to deploy new offerings and HW infrastructure on time, in high volume with high quality and lowest cost is of paramount importance.
We are seeking a Senior Firmware Engineer to join our team within SCHIE, where we build the foundational firmware that powers Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure—including its cutting-edge compute silicon. This role offers a unique opportunity to work across Azure’s custom silicon programs and contribute directly to the firmware stack that enables Microsoft’s most advanced compute workloads.
Responsibilities
- Develop firmware for telemetry systems, platform initialization, and board support packages across Azure’s custom silicon programs.
- Design and implement low-level inter-core messaging services and support SSIO interfaces such as I3C, I2C, UART, SPI, and others.
- Implement power control loops, memory and cache management, boot-ordering and other initialization flows and Infrastructure chips.
- Own and evolve the RTOS and driver frameworks, ensuring high performance, reliability, and scalability.
- Build and maintain OS-level performance infrastructure and debugging tools to accelerate development and root-cause analysis.
- Collaborate with silicon, hardware, and software teams to deliver secure, production-grade firmware that powers Azure’s infrastructure.
- Take ownership of a major technical area and drive its roadmap, contributing to long-term strategy and mentoring others.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications:
Doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 1+ year(s) technical engineering experience OR Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 4+ years technical engineering experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 5+ years technical engineering experience OR equivalent experience.
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:
- Proficient in C/C++.
- Experience debugging and resolving issues spanning multiple subsystems in the embedded ecosystem.
- Experience with one or more of the following: platform initialization, low level device drivers for peripherals/protocols such as I3C, I2C, SPI, USB, UARTs as well as Memory Management, Scheduling, Interrupts or multi-threading.
- Experience with board‑level bring‑up and lab debug (e.g., JTAG/SWD/GDB, UART/I²C/SPI/GPIO)
- Experience with SoC bring-up, OS primitives, memory management, and multi-threading.
- Experience with reliability/availability/serviceability (RAS) scenarios (error injection, crashdump)
- Experience in working in pre-silicon environments.
Firmware 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 $158,400 - $258,000 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.