Overview

Our team’s mission is to architect, co-design, and productionize next-generation AI systems at datacenter scale. We operate at the intersection of models, systems software, networking, storage, and AI hardware, optimizing end-to-end performance, efficiency, reliability, and cost. Our work spans today’s frontier AI workloads and directly shapes the next generation of accelerators, system architectures, and large-scale AI platforms. We pursue this mission through deep hardware–software co-design, combining rigorous systems thinking with hands-on engineering. The team invests heavily in understanding real production workloads large-scale training, inference, and emerging multimodal models and translating those insights into concrete improvements across the stack: from kernels, runtimes, and distributed systems, all the way down to silicon-level trade-offs and datacenter-scale architectures.

This role sits at the boundary between exploration and production. You will work closely with internal infrastructure, hardware, compiler, and product teams, as well as external partners across the hardware and systems ecosystem. Our operating model emphasizes rapid ideation and prototyping, followed by disciplined execution to drive high-leverage ideas into production systems that operate at massive scale.

In addition to delivering real-world impact on large-scale AI platforms, the team actively contributes to the broader research and engineering community. Our work aligns closely with leading communities in ML systems, distributed systems, computer architecture, and high-performance computing, and we regularly publish, prototype, and open-source impactful technologies where appropriate. Starting January 26, 2026, MAI employees are expected to work from a designated Microsoft office at least four days a week if they live within 50 miles (U.S.) or 25 miles (non-U.S., country-specific) of that location. This expectation is subject to local law and may vary by jurisdiction.

Responsibilities

• Lead the co-design of AI systems across hardware and software boundaries, spanning accelerators, interconnects, memory systems, storage, runtimes, and distributed training/inference frameworks.

• Drive architectural decisions by analyzing real workloads, identifying bottlenecks across compute, communication, and data movement, and translating findings into actionable system and hardware requirements.

• Co-design and optimize parallelism strategies, execution models, and distributed algorithms to improve scalability, utilization, reliability, and cost efficiency of large-scale AI systems.

• Develop and evaluate what-if performance models to project system behavior under future workloads, model architectures, and hardware generations, providing early guidance to hardware and platform roadmaps.

• Partner with compiler, kernel, and runtime teams to unlock the full performance of current and next-generation accelerators, including custom kernels, scheduling strategies, and memory optimizations.

• Influence and guide AI hardware design at system and silicon levels, including accelerator microarchitecture, interconnect topology, memory hierarchy, and system integration trade-offs.

• Lead cross-functional efforts to prototype, validate, and productionize high-impact co-design ideas, working across infrastructure, hardware, and product teams.

• Mentor senior engineers and researchers, set technical direction, and raise the overall bar for systems rigor, performance engineering, and co-design thinking across the organization.

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field 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.

Additional or Preferred Qualifications

• Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ 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 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python

  • OR equivalent experience.

• Strong background in one or more of the following areas:

  • AI accelerator or GPU architectures
  • Distributed systems and large-scale AI training/inference
  • High-performance computing (HPC) and collective communications
  • ML systems, runtimes, or compilers
  • Performance modeling, benchmarking, and systems analysis
  • Hardware–software co-design for AI workloads

• Proficiency in systems-level programming (e.g., C/C++, CUDA, Python) and performance-critical software development.

• Proven ability to work across organizational boundaries and influence technical decisions involving multiple stakeholders.

• Experience designing or operating large-scale AI clusters for training or inference.

• Deep familiarity with LLMs, multimodal models, or recommendation systems, and their systems-level implications.

• Experience with accelerator interconnects and communication stacks (e.g., NCCL, MPI, RDMA, high-speed Ethernet or InfiniBand).

• Background in performance modeling and capacity planning for future hardware generations.

• Prior experience contributing to or leading hardware roadmaps, silicon bring-up, or platform architecture reviews.

• Publications, patents, or open-source contributions in systems, architecture, or ML systems are a plus.

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 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 $188,000 - $304,200 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

Software Engineering IC6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $165,600 - $296,400 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 $220,800 - $331,200 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.

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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.