OverviewJoin the Microsoft 365 Core Data Access team in Redmond, the Bay Area, or New York as a Senior Software Engineer building the query, blob, and data-access services behind Microsoft 365 and Copilot.
We are looking for an engineer who enjoys solving distributed systems problems and building software that other engineers depend on. In this individual contributor role, you will own features and components from design through production, make thoughtful technical trade-offs, and collaborate with partner teams to turn complex requirements into maintainable solutions. You will combine hands-on development with technical leadership through design reviews, mentoring, and improvements to engineering practices.
You will join a collaborative team that values curiosity, accountability, and continuous learning. We share knowledge, welcome different perspectives, and use production data and customer feedback to guide our decisions. This role offers the opportunity to deepen your expertise in large-scale systems while improving the platforms behind Microsoft 365 experiences.
Responsibilities- Collaborate with product managers, engineers, and partner teams to understand customer needs and translate them into clear technical requirements.
- Lead the technical design and delivery of components across the team's data-access services: a query service that runs across sharded Microsoft 365 data, a blob service, and a gRPC service that exposes the core mailbox store. Evaluate trade-offs, identify dependencies and risks, and document decisions.
- Write, test, review, and maintain high-quality code, with attention to correctness, performance, security, and long-term maintainability.
- Design and evolve service APIs, including gRPC APIs, and C# and Rust client libraries that partner teams can adopt easily. Work with those teams to integrate them successfully.
- Own the production health of your components through monitoring, safe deployments, and participation in the on-call rotation. Diagnose incidents, address root causes, and improve operational readiness.
- Use telemetry, profiling, and customer feedback to identify and deliver improvements in reliability, scalability, performance, and resource efficiency.
- Mentor engineers, provide constructive code and design reviews, and share knowledge to strengthen the team's engineering practices and technical judgment.
QualificationsRequired Qualifications:- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 2+ 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: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:- Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 3+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
- OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 5+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
- OR equivalent experience. solid understanding of data structures, algorithms, and system design principles.
- Experience building and operating large-scale distributed services in production, including on-call, incident response, safe deployment, and telemetry-driven diagnosis.
- Experience designing APIs, client libraries, or platforms used by other engineering teams, including RPC frameworks such as gRPC.
- Experience with storage systems, query engines, or other data-intensive services.
- Experience owning a component from design through operation, coordinating dependencies across teams, and mentoring engineers.
- Familiarity with security, authorization, privacy, and compliance in cloud services.
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.
