Overview

The way people discover places, such as restaurants, businesses, landmarks, and services, is being reshaped by large scale AI, intelligent retrieval, and agent driven systems. Within Microsoft AI, the Search Places team operates at the intersection of web scale data, machine learning, and AI powered Search experiences, enabling core scenarios across Search, Copilot, and many other Microsoft product surfaces.

Our team is part of the Search Places data organization, responsible for building and operating highly scalable data and service platforms that transform hundreds of billions of web and partner data documents into high quality, trustworthy place signals. We work on complex problems spanning data engineering, distributed systems, and applied machine learning, while actively leveraging AI agents to accelerate development, evaluation, and operational workflows.

We are seeking a Software Engineer II who is excited to work at the edge of AI agents and large scale systems. In this role, you will join a talented team of Software Engineers and Applied Scientists based in Barcelona, working collaboratively on some of the most challenging problems in Search Places. You will design and build distributed services, data pipelines, and machine learning driven components that enable accurate, efficient, and globally scalable place data discovery. You will collaborate closely with applied scientists, product managers, and partner teams, and you will have opportunities to both use and innovate on AI agent based tooling to solve real world engineering challenges.

This role offers the opportunity to grow as an engineer in a deeply technical environment, working on problems that combine scale, data quality, AI, and system reliability, while contributing directly to Microsoft’s mission of delivering trusted, intelligent Search experiences to users worldwide.

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.

Starting January 26, 2026, Microsoft AI (MAI) employees who live within a 50- mile commute of a designated Microsoft office in the U.S. or 25-mile commute of a non-U.S., country-specific location are expected to work from the office at least four days per week. This expectation is subject to local law and may vary by jurisdiction.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate high scale, production grade services on Azure, including cloud hosted systems for data ingestion, transformation, storage, and serving, using modern distributed and serverless architectures.
• Develop AI native systems, leveraging state of the art AI and LLM technologies to build new capabilities, improve engineering efficiency, automate workflows, and raise overall engineering excellence across the software development lifecycle.
• Build and maintain high throughput data streaming solutions, large scale batch processing pipelines, and data platforms capable of running LLMs and AI workloads at scale, with solid guarantees around reliability, performance, cost efficiency, and security.
• Apply solid software engineering fundamentals by writing high quality, testable, maintainable code; participating actively in code reviews; and considering diagnosability, reliability, security, and long term operability in all designs and implementations.
• Apply security, privacy, compliance, and responsible AI principles across all systems and pipelines, ensuring least privilege access, safe deployments, proper auditing, and alignment with organizational standards and regulatory requirements.
• Work effectively as part of large, multi disciplinary, and cross functional teams, collaborating closely with software engineers, applied scientists, product managers, and partner teams to deliver end to end solutions.
• Adapt quickly to new problem spaces and projects, contribute across multiple domains as needed, and present technical work, results, and trade offs to stakeholders, including senior leadership, to drive alignment and informed decision making.

Qualifications Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
• OR equivalent experience.
• Experience designing and building scalable systems, including distributed services with high availability. Experience building AI powered systems as part of production services.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms including developing, deploying, and troubleshooting cloud hosted services.
• Experience working effectively in large engineering teams, including documenting technical designs and implementations, participating in code reviews, and collaborating across disciplines such as engineering, applied science, and product.

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:

• Experience using AI based development tools and AI agents to improve engineering productivity and software quality, such as accelerating development workflows, improving code quality, assisting with testing or debugging, or enhancing operational efficiency, with accountability for the correctness and reliability of outcomes.

#MicrosoftAI #Search #MAI #Places #Software Engineering

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.