Microsoft

Senior Network HW System Engineer

Microsoft$119K — $234K *
Telecommunications & Hardware
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

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 the same fields AND 5+ years experience OR equivalent experience.
  • 5+ years of experience developing or validating networking, compute, storage, or accelerator hardware systems.
  • 5+ years of experience designing, integrating, validating, or troubleshooting Ethernet-based networking infrastructure, including switches, NICs, optics, PHYs, or high-speed SerDes technologies.
  • 5+ years of experience supporting AI, HPC, cloud, or large-scale data center infrastructure deployments.

Responsibilities

  • Develop and integrate networking solutions for MAIA AI training and inference systems.
  • Translate AI/ML workload requirements into system-level networking requirements.
  • Evaluate architecture tradeoffs across performance, reliability, power, scalability, serviceability, and cost.
  • Drive integration, bring-up, and qualification of network hardware components.
  • Collaborate with various engineering teams to resolve complex integration issues.
  • Develop end-to-end validation strategies for AI fabric performance.
  • Lead root-cause analysis of networking issues and improve network reliability.

Benefits

  • Access to comprehensive health care coverage.
  • Opportunities for professional development and skill enhancement.
  • Potential for flexible work arrangements.
  • Participation in performance incentive programs.
Full Job Description
Responsibilities

AI Networking Architecture & System Development

  • Develop and integrate scale-up and scale-out networking solutions for MAIA AI training and inference systems.


  • Translate AI/ML workload requirements into system-level networking requirements.


  • Evaluate architecture tradeoffs across performance, reliability, power, scalability, serviceability, and cost.


Network Hardware Integration & Bring-Up

  • Drive integration, bring-up, and qualification of switches, NICs, PHYs, MAC/PCS, SerDes, optics, cables, and backplane technologies.


  • Collaborate across silicon, firmware, hardware, software, and OS teams to resolve complex integration issues.


  • Partner with technology vendors, ODMs, and CMs through qualification and production readiness.


AI Fabric Validation & Performance

  • Develop end-to-end validation strategies covering functionality, performance, scale, interoperability, reliability, and stress.


  • Characterize AI fabric performance including bandwidth, latency, link utilization, congestion behavior, and communication efficiency.


  • Develop validation methodologies for rack-scale and cluster-scale AI infrastructure.


High-Speed Electrical & Optical Interconnects

  • Drive qualification of next-generation electrical and optical networking technologies, including high-speed SerDes, copper interconnects, optical modules, and high-density connectivity.


  • Evaluate technologies such as PAM4 SerDes, DAC/AEC, OSFP/QSFP-DD, advanced optical interconnects, LPO/LRO, CPO, and silicon photonics.


  • Analyze system-level tradeoffs across performance, power, reliability, signal/link integrity, and scalability.


Debug, Telemetry & Automation

  • Lead root-cause analysis of complex networking issues across PHY, SerDes, MAC/PCS, switches, NICs, firmware, and system software.


  • Develop and improve telemetry, diagnostics, validation automation, and network health monitoring.


  • Use lab characterization and system telemetry to drive issues to resolution and improve platform reliability.


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.
  • 5+ years of experience developing or validating networking, compute, storage, or accelerator hardware systems.
  • 5+ years of experience designing, integrating, validating, or troubleshooting Ethernet-based networking infrastructure, including switches, NICs, optics, PHYs, or high-speed SerDes technologies.
  • 5+ years of experience supporting AI, HPC, cloud, or large-scale data center infrastructure deployments.


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:

  • Experience with GPU, FPGA, TPU, or custom AI accelerator systems supporting AI/ML workloads.


  • Experience with scale-up and scale-out AI networking and distributed AI infrastructure.


  • Electrical networking expertise in areas such as 112G/224G SerDes, PAM4, MAC/PCS, FEC, link training, signal integrity, DACs, and AECs, or optical expertise in areas such as OSFP/QSFP-DD, AOCs, optical transceivers, optical link characterization, and diagnostics.


  • Familiarity with optical technologies such as DR4/DR8/FR4, optical link budgets, OMA, TDECQ, receiver sensitivity, LPO, LRO, CPO, or silicon photonics.


  • Understanding of AI workload communication patterns, network collectives, traffic profiles, and congestion behavior.


  • Familiarity with IEEE Ethernet, OIF, CMIS, and emerging AI networking technologies.


  • Experience with Linux, telemetry, diagnostics, scripting, test automation, and network qualification.


  • Experience with hyperscale datacenter infrastructure and hardware development from prototype through production.


#azure #MAIA #AI/ML #Networking Hardware

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:
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.

About Microsoft

Microsoft is an American multinational corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells a range of software products and services. Microsoft’s devices and consumer (D&C) licensing segment licenses the Windows operating system and related software, Microsoft Office for consumers, and the Windows Phone operating system. The company’s computing and gaming hardware segment provides Xbox gaming and entertainment consoles and accessories, second-party and third-party video games, and Xbox Live subscriptions; surface devices and accessories; and Microsoft PC accessories. Its phone hardware segment offers Lumia smartphones and other non-Lumia phones. Its D&C segment provides Windows Store, Xbox Live transactions, and Windows phone store; search advertising; display advertising; Office 365 Home and Office 365 Personal; first-party video games; and other consumer products and services as well as operating retail stores. Microsoft’s commercial licensing segments license server products, including Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Studio, System Center, and related Client Access Licenses (CALs); Windows Embedded; Windows operating system; Microsoft Office for business, including Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, and related CALs; Microsoft Dynamics business solutions; and Skype. Its commercial segment offers enterprise services, including premier support services and Microsoft consulting services; commercial cloud comprising Office 365 Commercial, other Microsoft Office online offerings, Dynamics CRM Online, and Microsoft Azure; and other commercial products and online services. The company markets and distributes its products through original equipment manufacturers, distributors, and resellers, as well as online.

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Learn more about Microsoft
Size
181,000 employees
Market Cap
$1,762.4 billion
Industry
Net Income
$51.3 billion
Founded
1975
5 Year Trend
+15.5%
Revenue
$153.2 billion
NASDAQ

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