Senior Firmware Engineer
Role details
Job location
Tech stack
Job description
Are you passionate about building highly reliable cloud infrastructure on a planetary scale? The Azure Hardware Diagnostics team is responsible for delivering firmware-driven diagnostic and validation solutions that ensure the health, reliability, and availability of Azure datacenter hardware., We are seeking a Senior Firmware Engineer with deep expertise in platform firmware, hardware diagnostics, and failure analysis to drive end-to-end diagnostic capabilities across Azure server platforms. In this role, you will be a technical leader responsible for architecting, developing, and deploying firmware-based diagnostic solutions that enable rapid fault isolation, root-cause analysis, and predictive health monitoring for compute, memory, storage, networking, and accelerator subsystems.
You will work across the hardware, firmware, operating system, and cloud-stack boundaries, partnering closely with silicon vendors, platform engineering teams, datacenter operations, reliability engineering, and Azure service teams to improve hardware quality and reduce customer impact from infrastructure failures. Your work will directly influence the reliability and availability of millions of servers powering Microsoft's cloud services.
Responsibilities
- Own firmware-based diagnostic readiness across Azure server platforms from architecture and bring-up through production support.
- Design diagnostic frameworks across silicon telemetry, hardware interfaces, platform firmware, operating systems, and cloud health systems.
- Lead platform bring-up, validation, and root-cause investigations for complex hardware, firmware, and system software issues.
- Develop diagnostic telemetry, health monitoring, fault-detection, automation, and triage tooling to improve fleet reliability.
- Collaborate with silicon vendors, ODM/OEM partners, and internal platform teams to define diagnostic requirements and improve serviceability.
- Mentor engineers and drive engineering excellence through design reviews, code reviews, metrics, validation coverage, and secure firmware practices.
Requirements
- 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
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., * Experience with large-scale cloud infrastructure, hyperscale datacenters, Azure infrastructure, or fleet health management systems.
- 6+ years developing platform firmware, embedded software, or low-level systems software for server, embedded, or datacenter platforms.
- Strong proficiency in C/C++ with experience building, debugging, and shipping firmware solutions through full development cycles.
- Experience developing or debugging firmware-based diagnostic and validation solutions for server-class hardware.
- Ability to independently root-cause cross-stack issues involving hardware, firmware, operating systems, telemetry, and infrastructure.
- Strong collaboration and technical leadership skills, including driving discussions across multiple engineering organizations and external partners.
- Knowledge of memory diagnostics, PCIe diagnostics, storage reliability, accelerator/GPU health monitoring, or platform serviceability.
- Experience with firmware telemetry pipelines, cloud-scale diagnostic data analytics, reliability analysis, or predictive failure detection.
- Experience developing automation frameworks for validation, failure triage, manufacturing diagnostics, data collection, or fleet-scale testing.
- Experience with Rust, C#, Redfish protocols, and service-oriented architecture for firmware, diagnostics, platform management, or telemetry systems.
- Experience using AI-assisted or agentic code development workflows to improve engineering productivity, automation, validation, or diagnostics tooling.
#SCHIE
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 $160,200 - $261,000 per year.
About the company
Microsoft is a global technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. We develop, license, and support a wide range of software products, services, and devices that help individuals and businesses realize their full potential.
Our flagship products include the Microsoft 365 productivity cloud, Windows operating system, Azure cloud platform, and Dynamics 365 business applications. We are also a leader in areas such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, developer tools, and gaming through Xbox and Game Pass.
With operations in more than 190 countries and over 220,000 employees worldwide, Microsoft is committed to responsible innovation, inclusive economic growth, and sustainability. We work closely with governments, industries, and communities to ensure that technology serves the public good and helps address some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
As we celebrate our 50th anniversary in 2025, we continue to look forward—investing in AI, cloud, and quantum computing to shape the future of work, education, and society at large scale.