Senior Firmware & System Debug Engineer

Overview

Microsoft Silicon and Cloud Hardware Infrastructure Engineering (SCHIE) is the team behind Microsoft's expanding Cloud Infrastructure and responsible for powering Microsoft's "Intelligent Cloud" mission. SCHIE delivers the core infrastructure and foundational technologies for Microsofts over 200 online businesses including Bing, MSN, Office 365, Xbox Live, Skype, OneDrive and the Microsoft Azure platform globally with our server and data center infrastructure, security and compliance, operations, globalization, and manageability solutions.

We in SCHIE's Firmware Center of Excellence create the foundational firmware that powers the Microsoft Cloud. Our firmware lights up millions of servers and racks across the globe, enabling users to do everything from running blogs to crunching through powerful AI algorithms. We're a growing team of diverse, talented & passionate engineers inventing and delivering technology to light up the "world's computer!" We are working on the next generation hardware/firmware for server, silicon and rack infrastructure with a focus on innovation in firmware technology to secure Azure infrastructure for Microsoft and their customers. We believe that a robust firmware infrastructure leads to incredibly powerful computing experiences-if you believe this too, we need you!

Microsofts first-party (1P) Firmware team is seeking a Senior Firmware & System Debug Engineer for future MAIA and Cobalt products from silicon bring-up through production fleet operation. You will lead embedded firmware development, investigations across firmware, silicon, hardware, operating systems, and drivers; develop debug capabilities and telemetry-analysis capabilities; and apply automation, data science, and AI-assisted tools to accelerate root-cause analysis at scale. We are looking for someone with demonstated experience with firmware development, debug, technical investigations and identifying fixes.

#azurehwjobs #SCHIE

Responsibilities

• Lead embedded firmware development, debug and fixes for silicon/SOC issues.
• Own complex investigations into firmware crashes, boot/reset failures, hangs, memory corruption, and hardware/software interaction issues across MAIA and Cobalt.
• Correlate firmware logs, silicon error records, crash dumps, OS/driver traces, configuration, and fleet telemetry to isolate failure mechanisms.
• Develop reproducible experiments and targeted diagnostic firmware or tooling to test hypotheses and distinguish firmware defects from silicon, hardware, or software causes.
• Build scalable analysis and triage automation, including failure bucketing, signature detection, cohort comparisons, and regression detection.
• Apply statistical analysis and AI-assisted methods to prioritize investigations and reduce manual analysis, validating results against independent evidence.
• Drive mitigations and permanent fixes with component owners; verify effectiveness through regression testing and post-deployment telemetry.
• Convert investigation findings into improved instrumentation, test coverage, troubleshooting guidance, and mentoring

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 1+ year(s) technical engineering experience OR Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 4+ years technical engineering experience OR Bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 5+ years technical engineering experience 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.

This role will require access to information that is controlled for export under export control regulations, potentially under the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations or Export Administration Regulations, the EU Dual Use Regulation, and/or other export control regulations.  As a condition of employment, the successful candidate will be required to provide either proof of their country of citizenship or proof of their US. residency or other protected status (e.g., under 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3)) for assessment of eligibility to access the export-controlled information. To meet this legal requirement, and as a condition of employment, the successful candidate's citizenship will be verified with a valid passport. Lawful permanent residents, refugees, and asylees may verify status using other documents, where applicable.

Preferred Qualifications:

• BS or MS in Computer Science/Engineering or equivalent industry experience.
• 8+ years of professional experience in embedded-system design, development, integration, validation, or system-level debugging.
• Experience with cross-layer root-cause analysis of firmware, silicon, or system failures using logs, crash dumps, or telemetry.
• Experience reading and debugging C/C++ firmware, together with scripting experience for automation or engineering-data analysis.
• Experience with system-level debug and validation of complex embedded systems, including boards, FPGA, emulation, or simulation environments.
• Experience managing production or fleet issues through mitigation, root cause, corrective action, and post-deployment verification.
• Experience with PCIe, memory subsystems, I2C, SPI, or other low-level platform interfaces.
• Experience with silicon bring-up, firmware initialization, and lab or source-level debug tools such as JTAG, GDB, oscilloscopes, or logic analyzers.
• Experience building automated diagnostic, test, or CI/CD pipelines and regression coverage.
• Experience using Python, KQL/SQL or equivalent tools, and statistical methods for telemetry analysis, failure-signature grouping, or cohort comparisons.
• Experience evaluating or applying AI-assisted tools to log/crash analysis, anomaly detection, or evidence-backed triage.
• Experience mentoring engineers, documenting troubleshooting methods, and collaborating across firmware, silicon, hardware, OS, and fleet teams.

Firmware 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.