Senior Electrical Engineer

Overview

Join the team developing next-generation, high-bandwidth network switch platforms for Microsoft Azure AI infrastructure. You will contribute across the full product lifecycle, from architecture and board design through system validation, manufacturing, and deployment.

Microsoft 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 passionate engineers to help achieve that mission.

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 Cloud Hardware Systems Engineering (CHSE) 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 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 looking for a Senior Electrical Engineer to own and lead the development of complex network switch platforms for Microsoft Azure AI infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Own electrical development of custom network switch platforms from architecture and requirements definition through schematic design, layout, bring-up, qualification, manufacturing readiness, and production release.

• Translate network, system, rack, reliability, serviceability, security, and manufacturing requirements into detailed electrical architecture and platform design specifications.

• Develop and review circuitry of switch ASIC, control-plane CPU, BMC, clocking, reset, power-delivery, high-speed Ethernet, retimer, optical-module, cable-backplane, telemetry, and platform-management.

• Drive schematic, PCB stack-up, signal-integrity, power-integrity, layout, BOM, component-derating, design-for-test, design-for-manufacturing, and design-for-reliability reviews with cross-functional collaboration to deliver complete switch-tray solutions.

• Define board- and system-level bring-up, electrical validation, margining, interoperability, stress, and production-test requirements, and drive execution and closure across development phases.

• Lead complex hardware debug and root-cause investigations using oscilloscopes, VNAs, protocol analyzers, logic analyzers, telemetry, and system logs.

• Drive electrical integration of the switch tray within rack-scale AI systems, including cable-backplane connectivity, front-panel optics, power, cooling, serviceability, telemetry, and management interfaces.

• Provide technical direction to ODM/OEM partners, establish deliverables and review criteria, track design maturity, identify execution risks, and drive closure of design, validation, manufacturing, and quality issues.

• Capture design decisions, lessons learned, specifications, validation results, and engineering best practices for reuse across future network-switch platforms.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 3+ years technical engineering experience

• OR Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, 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.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field and relevant technical engineering experience, or equivalent experience.

• 5+ years of experience designing and developing board- or system-level hardware for networking, compute, storage, accelerator, or datacenter products.

• 5+ years of experience with hardware bring-up, electrical validation, and root-cause debugging.

• Experience developing high-speed serial and high-current power-delivery hardware and working across hardware, firmware, mechanical, thermal, validation, or manufacturing disciplines.

• Experience working across hardware, firmware, mechanical, thermal, validation, manufacturing, or other engineering disciplines and organizations to deliver complex hardware platforms.

• Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional engineering teams and external development partners.

• Proven background developing Ethernet switches based on merchant switch ASICs.

• Strong knowledge of switch ASIC, CPU, BMC, CPLD/FPGA, clocking, reset, and power-delivery architectures.

• Hands-on expertise with Ethernet SerDes, PAM4 signaling, retimers, high-speed connectors, cable backplanes, and pluggable optical modules.

• Familiarity with SONiC hardware enablement and switch-platform management interfaces.

• Demonstrated ability to conduct SI/PI design reviews and assess simulation reports.

• Track record of delivering hardware through engineering validation, design validation, production validation, and high-volume manufacturing.

• Proven ability to lead ODM/OEM electrical-design execution.

• Familiarity with thermal, mechanical, reliability, security, serviceability, and rack-integration requirements.

• Strong technical communication, specification-writing, and cross-functional leadership skills.

#SCHIE

Hardware 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.

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. (