Principal AI Network Architect

Do you want to be at the forefront of innovating the latest hardware designs to propel Microsoft’s cloud growth? Are you seeking a unique career opportunity that combines both technical capabilities, cross team collaboration, with business insight and strategy?

Join our Strategic Planning and Architecture (SPARC) team within Microsoft’s Azure Hardware Systems & Infrastructure (AHSI) organization and be a part of the organization behind Microsoft’s expanding Cloud Infrastructure and responsible for powering Microsoft’s “Intelligent Cloud” mission.  

Microsoft delivers more than 200 online services to more than one billion individuals worldwide and AHSI is the team behind our expanding cloud infrastructure. We deliver the core infrastructure and foundational technologies for Microsoft's cloud businesses including Microsoft Azure, Bing, MSN, Office 365, OneDrive, Skype, Teams and Xbox Live. 

The SPARC organization manages Azure’s hardware roadmap from architecture concept through production for all of Microsoft’s current and future on-line services.  We are looking for a Principal AI Network Architect with a good background in Artificial Intelligence(AI)/neural networks and experience designing and evaluating networks and technologies for high performance distributed systems. You will be involved with system architecture, network architecture, as well as workload understanding, modelling and co-design.

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.

In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

Responsibilities

• Propose and evaluate system architectures to meet stringent workload and datacenter requirements.
• Maintain and leverage in-house performance modeling tools for AI workload and Networking evaluation.
• Identify performance bottlenecks, optimize resource utilization, and implement improvements to enhance performance.
• Help architect large scale systems which support breakthrough performance AI workloads to shape Azure’s AI infrastructure roadmap.  
• Drive Neural Networks(NN) model/Hardware(HW) codesign.  
• Understand business critical AI workloads/applications.
• Other
  • Embody our Culture and Values  

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or related technical discipline AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of experience developing/architecting hardware and/or networks.
• Experience with network simulation environments like HTSim and NS3.

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:

• MS/PhD in Machine learning, Computer Architecture/Systems, Electrical Engineering, High-Performance Computing or related areas.  
• Understanding of large language models, training and inference. 
• Experience in python programming and Software engineering. 
• Effective communication and collaborative mindset.
• Good problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
• Working knowledge of prevailing Large Language Models (LLM) and frameworks like Tensorflow, Pytorch is a plus.

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $137,600 - $267,000 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 $180,400 - $294,000 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   

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until January 3, 2025.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.  We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.