below marketmost similar roles pay hereabove market
This role pays more than
68%
of similar roles. Most pay
$169,550–$225,500
— the blue band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$209k
versus about
$198k
for comparable roles.
Based on 240 similar postings.
Employer
About Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is a global technology leader producing software, hardware, and cloud services including Windows, Office 365, Azure cloud platform, Xbox gaming, and Surface devices. Industry: Software & Cloud Computing
Microsoft currently has
682 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$119,800–$234,700
across 640 roles with salary data.
The Principal Software Engineer - HW/SW in Fleet Infrastructure joins the Fleet & Capacity organization within Microsoft 365 Core Platform. This role provides technical leadership for the evolution of Substrate’s hardware and firmware platforms, focusing on New Product Introduction strategy, live-site reliability, and AI-optimized infrastructure. You will design and optimize infrastructure software across OS, firmware, telemetry, and monitoring areas while driving failure analysis for critical incidents. Key responsibilities include defining architecture for platform bring-up, lifecycle management, and health telemetry. You will utilize coding skills in C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python to solve complex problems involving storage, networking, and silicon providers. The work involves managing hardware and firmware health architecture to ensure reliable, scalable, and serviceable hyperscale infrastructure for Microsoft 365 and Azure services.
What does a Software Engineer earn?
Median $196750 from 2539 postings across 151 companies.
Design and optimize infrastructure software across OS, firmware, fleet health, telemetry, and monitoring areas.
Define technical strategy and architecture for New Product Introduction, including platform bring-up and lifecycle management.
Design hardware and firmware reliability architecture for health telemetry, diagnostics, and remediation automation.
Lead failure analysis and root cause investigations for critical live-site incidents involving hardware and infrastructure platforms.
Establish engineering standards and observability patterns to improve fleet availability and reduce deployment risk.
Evolve substrate infrastructure strategy to support AI and agentic workloads across compute, memory, storage, and networking.
Influence cross-organizational technical direction and communicate complex architectural tradeoffs to senior leadership.
What we're looking for
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field and 6+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages like C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python, or equivalent experience.
Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field and 8+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages like C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python, or equivalent experience (preferred).
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field and 12+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages like C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python, or equivalent experience (preferred).
Ability to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements, including the Microsoft Cloud background check.
Deep experience with hardware platforms, firmware, OS, drivers, datacenter infrastructure software, storage systems, networking, or platform software (preferred).
Experience with New Product Introduction, platform validation, deployment readiness, lifecycle management, or fleet-scale hardware operations (preferred).
Experience on hyperscale fleet live site using telemetry, observability, failure analysis, predictive diagnostics, or automation to improve infrastructure reliability (preferred).
Experience working with silicon providers, hardware vendors, OEMs, ODMs, firmware teams, or platform engineering organizations (preferred).