Senior Principal Power Management Architect

Job ID: 200058398Posted: 2026-09-29Location: United States, Washington, RedmondSalary: USD $165,600 - $296,400 per yearEmployment type: Full-TimeWork site: 3 days / week in-officeRole type: Individual ContributorTravel: Less than 25%Profession: Hardware EngineeringDiscipline: Silicon EngineeringCompany: MicrosoftOverviewMicrosoft 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 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 advantages 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 SoC Architecture 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 experienced 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 seeking a Senior Principal Power Management Architect to lead the definition, optimization, and implementation of power-management capabilities across advanced silicon and computing platforms.ResponsibilitiesDefine the end-to-end power-management architecture for complex silicon, firmware, operating-system, and platform environments.Develop power-optimization strategies that balance energy efficiency, performance, thermals, reliability, and product cost.Architect and guide implementation of low-power features, including dynamic voltage and frequency scaling, clock and power gating, idle-state management, workload-aware controls, and power-state transitions.Specify power-management software, firmware interfaces, policies, control loops, and algorithms for real-time and predictive optimization.Establish requirements for voltage, temperature, process, current, activity, and performance sensors; define their placement, calibration, accuracy, telemetry, and control-system integration.Define the SoC power and performance telemetry architecture, including data models, collection paths, aggregation, accuracy, sampling, and interfaces to platform-management and fleet-level telemetry stacks.Review and optimize platform voltage-regulator architecture, including rail partitioning, regulator selection, efficiency, transient response, telemetry, sequencing, control interfaces, and alignment with silicon power-state and workload requirements.Lead thermal-management strategies informed by power-optimization results, silicon characterization, workload behavior, and platform constraints.Define methodologies for thermal design power estimation, measurement, correlation, guard-banding, and validation across pre-silicon and post-silicon environments.Use representative benchmarks and workload suites to characterize performance-per-watt, identify bottlenecks, tune policies, and validate power and performance targets.Partner with architecture, RTL, physical design, validation, firmware, operating-system, performance, thermal, mechanical, and product teams to drive solutions from concept through production.Conduct technical reviews, communicate tradeoffs to senior stakeholders, mentor engineers, and influence roadmap decisions through data-driven recommendations.QualificationsRequired/minimum qualificationsDoctorate in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 7+ years technical engineering experience OR Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 10+ years technical engineering experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience OR equivalent experience.Other RequirementsAbility 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:Extensive industry experience in silicon or system power architecture, with demonstrated technical leadership across multiple product generations.Expert-level understanding of power-management architecture, power optimization, low-power design and implementation techniques, and hardware-software co-design.Deep experience with power-management firmware, software policies, management algorithms, feedback-control techniques, telemetry, and workload-aware optimization.Expertise in sensor technologies used for voltage, temperature, process, current, activity, and thermal monitoring, including calibration, accuracy, noise, sampling, and system-level use.Understanding of thermal management, power delivery, silicon operating limits, reliability considerations, and the relationship between power, performance, voltage, frequency, and temperature.Demonstrated experience with TDP estimation and measurement, power modeling, silicon characterization, data correlation, and production validation.Solid understanding of benchmark selection and utilization for performance optimization, power-performance analysis, workload characterization, and performance-per-watt evaluation.Ability to develop clear architectural specifications and to communicate complex technical decisions to engineering teams and executive stakeholders.Advanced degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, or a related field.Experience architecting power management for CPUs, GPUs, accelerators, memory subsystems, interconnects, I/O, or heterogeneous system-on-chip designs.Knowledge of pre-silicon modeling, emulation, post-silicon bring-up, telemetry analytics, and automated tuning or optimization frameworks.Experience working across hardware, firmware, operating systems, drivers, platform management, and datacenter or high-performance computing environments.Track record of technical innovation demonstrated through patents, publications, standards participation, or delivery of differentiated production features.Silicon Engineering IC6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $165,600 - $296,400 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 $220,800 - $331,200 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: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.