2 days ago
Base Salary
$143k - $304k/yr
Responsibilities
- Define firmware architecture, requirements, subsystem interfaces, dependencies, and design principles for Microsoft first-party silicon programs.
- Partner with silicon architects, board engineers, hardware teams, platform integration teams, firmware developers, and Azure service teams to ensure requirements are feasible, testable, complete, and aligned with service needs.
- Drive architecture reviews and technical decisions across boot, platform initialization, manageability, security, telemetry, recovery, reliability, performance, and operational capabilities.
- Develop security requirements and threat models for firmware features, platform capabilities, and cross-domain interfaces.
- Design, implement, debug, and review shared firmware components and drivers, including work involving memory management.
- Define firmware behavior, feature coverage, and acceptance criteria for validation, platform bring-up, and release readiness.
- Diagnose architecture and integration issues across silicon, board, and firmware boundaries and perform low-level debugging, performance analysis, and root cause analysis.
- Improve automated tests, continuous integration workflows, developer efficiency, and Rust adoption while contributing to effective AI-assisted development practices.
- Influence early product-cycle design tradeoffs to reduce integration risk and improve long-term firmware maintainability.
Requirements
- Doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field plus 3+ years of technical engineering experience; or a master’s degree plus 6+ years; or a bachelor’s degree plus 8+ years; or equivalent experience.
- Ability to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements, including the Microsoft Cloud Background Check.
- Ability to provide citizenship, U.S. residency, or other protected-status documentation for access to export-controlled information and to verify citizenship or status with valid documentation.
- Strong coding experience in C, C++, Rust, or similar low-level programming languages used for firmware and embedded systems.
- Experience defining firmware architecture and requirements for complex hardware platforms and translating product or cloud service requirements into firmware specifications.
- Experience with boot firmware, embedded runtime, platform initialization, recovery, telemetry, security, manageability, firmware validation, and platform debugging.
- Experience collaborating with silicon design, board design, hardware engineering, Azure service, or other cross-functional engineering teams.
- Experience with Python or other scripting languages for automation, validation, and tooling.
- Experience working in pre-silicon environments and with RTOS-based firmware development.
- Familiarity with PCIe, I3C, I2C, SPI, and USB hardware interfaces and protocols.
- Strong understanding of hardware/software co-design and feature bring-up on custom silicon platforms.
- Experience influencing architecture across multiple engineering teams and product groups.
- Preferred experience of 10+ years in firmware, embedded systems, or hardware platform architecture.
- Ability to communicate across technical and non-technical audiences, operate in ambiguous environments, and drive clear technical direction.
Benefits
- The typical U.S. base pay range is USD $142,800-$274,800 per year; a separate range of USD $188,000-$304,200 per year applies to specific locations in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City metropolitan area.
- Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation; additional benefits and pay information is provided through Microsoft’s careers site.
- The position will remain open for a minimum of 5 days and accepts applications on an ongoing basis until filled.
- The role requires passing the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.
- The role includes export-control eligibility and documentation requirements.
About Microsoft
Microsoft develops operating systems, productivity software, cloud services, developer tools, and consumer devices for individuals, enterprises, and governments. Its main products include Windows, Microsoft 365, Azure, Visual Studio/GitHub, Xbox, and LinkedIn; revenue comes from software subscriptions and licenses, cloud consumption, hardware sales, and advertising. Founded in 1975 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington, Microsoft is a public company traded on Nasdaq.