Overview

Azure is the foundation of Microsoft’s Cloud Services and a central pillar of Microsoft’s evolving cloud sovereignty strategy. As customers face increasing demands around data residency, operational control, resilience, and transparency, Azure is evolving to meet these needs at global scale. Built on a secure by design foundation, Azure delivers world class security, compliance, and operational resilience while enabling customers to retain control over their data and operations with transparency and auditability.

Azure Local is Microsoft’s adaptive cloud platform that brings Azure infrastructure and services to customer‑owned environments. Within Azure Local, Disconnected Operations enables customers in highly regulated, sovereign, or air‑gapped environments to run Azure infrastructure and workloads without any connectivity to the public Azure cloud, while preserving a consistent Azure control plane and operational experience.

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to help design, build, and operate critical components of the local Azure control plane that powers Azure Local in sovereign, permanently disconnected and intermittently connected environments. This role is ideal for an engineer who combines strong hands‑on execution with technical leadership across complex, distributed systems.

You will work on systems that span control planes, distributed infrastructure, lifecycle management, and reliability, collaborating closely with partner teams across Azure Edge + Platform to deliver secure, resilient, and operable solutions for some of Microsoft’s most demanding customers.

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.

Responsibilities- Design, implement, and maintain core platform services that enable Azure Local to operate fully disconnected from the public cloud, including local control plane components and supporting services.

• Build highly reliable, fault‑tolerant distributed systems that manage infrastructure, virtual machines, Kubernetes clusters, and platform services in constrained or air‑gapped environments.
• Drive end‑to‑end ownership of features, from design and implementation through testing, deployment, monitoring, and live‑site support.
• Collaborate with cross‑functional partners and partner engineering teams) to translate product requirements into robust technical designs.
• Identify and resolve complex reliability, scale, performance, and operability issues across multiple components and services.
• Contribute to engineering best practices around design reviews, code quality, testing, and operational excellence.
• Mentor other engineers through technical guidance, design feedback, and code reviews, while remaining primarily an individual contributor.

Qualifications Minimum 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:- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 4+ years of professional software engineering experience building large‑scale or distributed systems.
• Strong proficiency in one or more systems or backend languages (for example: C#, C++, Go, Java, or similar).
• Experience designing and operating cloud or cloud‑adjacent infrastructure, including control planes, management services, or platform systems.
• Solid understanding of distributed systems concepts such as consistency, availability, fault tolerance, leader election, and state management.
• Demonstrated ability to own and deliver complex features with minimal oversight.
• Experience with Azure, Azure Local, Azure Arc, Kubernetes, or container orchestration platforms.
• Background in Edge, hybrid, or on‑premises infrastructure environments.
• Experience building software for highly regulated, sovereign, or security‑sensitive environments.
• Familiarity with observability, diagnostics, and live‑site operations for mission‑critical services.
• Experience working in environments with limited connectivity, strict security boundaries, or offline operation constraints.

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 $158,400 - $258,000 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.