Senior Software Engineer

Overview

The Intelligent Conversation and Communication Cloud (IC3) powers billions of real-time conversations across Microsoft Teams, Dynamics 365, and Azure Communication Services. The IC3 Data Platform team builds globally distributed data infrastructure supporting analytics, service reliability, business intelligence, and AI-powered experiences.

Our Universal Counter System (UCS) is a large-scale, multi-tenant streaming platform that transforms high-volume event streams into near-real-time counters for protection, reliability, and M365 product scenarios. UCS processes millions of events per second while supporting large-scale state management, low-latency serving, exactly-once processing, regional resiliency, and strong platform governance.

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to build the next generation of UCS and the IC3 streaming platform. The engineer will apply large-scale, real-time data processing expertise to deliver reliable, high-performance services that support growing traffic and evolving customer needs.

Responsibilities include making architectural decisions spanning distributed systems, data processing, identity, privacy, compliance, reliability, and multi-tenant design; writing and reviewing production code; establishing engineering and operational standards; and guiding solutions from design through operation. Collaboration with engineering, product, security, compliance, and infrastructure teams will resolve ambiguous requirements and deliver scalable solutions.

The role will also advance AI-assisted engineering while maintaining human review, automated testing, security, and production-quality standards, mentoring engineers, and influencing technical direction across Microsoft organizational boundaries.

This position is based in Redmond, Washington and requires the employee be in the office a minimum of 3 days per week.

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.

Responsibilities

Lead the design and development of the Universal Counter System (UCS), a large-scale, self-service real-time streaming solution for event ingestion, stateful processing, near-real-time aggregation, low-latency serving, observability, and governance.

Drive innovation by leveraging Microsoft Azure, AI technologies, and open-source frameworks such as Flink and Spark to modernize data platforms and enable next-generation communication experiences.

Advance AI-native software development through coding agents, agentic workflows, and harness engineering.

Drive cross-team technical alignment by partnering with engineering and product teams across Microsoft to define requirements and deliver trusted, end-to-end data solutions.

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

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 6+ 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 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
• OR equivalent experience.
• Experience designing, developing, and operating reliable, large-scale, globally distributed production systems, particularly for real-time and near-real-time data processing.
• Hands-on experience with distributed streaming and cloud technologies such as Apache Flink, Spark, Kafka, Kubernetes, Azure Event Hubs, or related platforms.
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools and agentic workflows across the software development lifecycle, with the ability to review agent-generated code and pull requests with production-grade rigor.
• Demonstrated ability to influence without authority, align teams, and build effective partnerships with engineers, product managers, and leaders.
• Demonstrated technical leadership, problem-solving, and communication skills.
• Solid understanding of data privacy, compliance, and security in large-scale distributed systems.
• Large scale real-time and near-real-time data processing, Hands-on experience with Apache Flink and Spark, AI-assisted software development and automation.

#IC3 Platform

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.

Insights from previous hires

Top skills: Science, LLM, Interpretation, Data Science, Data Analysis, Core Banking, Communication, Collateral, Cloud, Business Intelligence (BI)

Common previous titles: Tech, Senior Software Engineer, Senior Software Developer, Staff Software Engineer, Solution Engineer, Cloud Solution Architect, Senior Solution Architect, Senior Account Executive, Software Engineer, Principal Data Scientist