Senior Software Engineer - CTJ - Poly

Join the Azure AI Platform air-gapped engineering team as a Senior Software Engineer and help bring advanced AI capabilities to some of Microsoft’s most security-sensitive customers. Our team delivers Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Foundry, Azure Machine Learning, and Azure AI Services in sovereign and air-gapped cloud environments, enabling mission-critical government workloads through secure, reliable AI infrastructure.

In this role, you will work across a broad portfolio of AI products, services, and supporting infrastructure. You will lead engineering projects from investigation and design through implementation and deployment, working across different codebases and architectures to solve challenges that span service boundaries. Your work will include bringing new AI capabilities into these environments, improving deployment and operational tooling, and resolving complex production issues—with opportunities to build solutions that benefit multiple services.

We are looking for engineers who combine strong coding skills and technical judgment with curiosity about how complex systems work together. You will collaborate with product teams across Azure AI, mentor fellow engineers, and take ownership of delivering results as customer needs and technologies evolve. This role offers the opportunity to build both broad knowledge of the AI platform and deep expertise in the systems and problems you tackle.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

• Lead the design and hands-on implementation of software and infrastructure improvements across the team’s portfolio of Azure AI services in air-gapped and sovereign environments.
• Own engineering initiatives from problem definition and technical design through testing, rollout, and operational follow-through, incorporating customer feedback and managing risks and dependencies.
• Work across multiple codebases and architectures, partnering with product teams to integrate capabilities and resolve challenges involving service dependencies, networking, identity, and infrastructure.
• Develop reusable automation, deployment tooling, release validation, and observability that improve reliability and engineering efficiency across multiple services.
• Participate in the team’s on-call rotations, investigate issues across the supported service portfolio, and coordinate with partner teams to restore service and deliver fixes that prevent recurrence.
• Mentor engineers and provide technical guidance through design discussions, code reviews, and documentation, sharing approaches and lessons that other services and teams can apply.
• Evaluate and apply approved AI-assisted development tools, including GitHub Copilot, to improve development workflows while maintaining security and engineering quality.
• Embody Microsoft’s culture and values, contributing to an inclusive team that values technical rigor, collaboration, and continuous learning.
• Embody our culture and values.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 4+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience. 

Other Requirements:

Security Clearance Requirements: Candidates must be able 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:

• The successful candidate must have an active U.S. Government Top Secret Clearance with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) based on a Single Scope Background Investigation (SSBI) with Polygraph. Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required pre-offer and post-hire for this role. Failure to maintain or obtain the appropriate U.S. Government clearance and/or customer screening requirements may result in employment action up to and including termination.
• Clearance Verification: This position requires successful verification of the stated security clearance to meet federal government customer requirements. You will be asked to provide clearance verification information prior to an offer of employment.
• Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.
• Citizenship & Citizenship Verification: This position requires verification of U.S. citizenship due to citizenship-based legal restrictions. Specifically, this position supports United States federal, state, and/or local United States government agency customer and is subject to certain citizenship-based restrictions where required or permitted by applicable law. To meet this legal requirement, citizenship will be verified via a valid passport, or other approved documents, or verified US government Clearance

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience designing, developing, and operating production cloud services or distributed systems using C#, Python, or another general-purpose programming language.
• Demonstrated ability to become productive in unfamiliar codebases and apply software engineering fundamentals across different services, architectures, or technology stacks.
• Experience making architectural tradeoffs involving reliability, scalability, security, and maintainability, including understanding dependencies between systems.
• Experience deploying or troubleshooting containerized services using technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes on Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, or comparable platforms.
• Experience building reusable deployment automation, CI/CD pipelines, testing frameworks, or observability tooling that supports multiple services.
• Experience diagnosing complex issues across application, platform, and infrastructure boundaries and collaborating with other teams to resolve them.
• Experience leading technical delivery of projects with cross-team dependencies and helping other engineers succeed through mentoring, design reviews, and code reviews.

Software 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:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

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.