Senior Software Engineer - AI Infrastructure

Overview Join our team within AI Infrastructure, where we are building the AI data-plane that powers all LLM inferencing workloads across Microsoft and Azure customers—from cutting-edge startups to Fortune 500 enterprises. Our converged AI fabric delivers inference capabilities for all LLMs in Microsoft catalog, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, Cohere, Llama, and more. As a  Senior Software Engineer, you will shape the future of one of the largest and fastest-growing services in Azure, foundational to Microsoft’s AI strategy. Our mission is to serve models at scale—reliably, efficiently, and with ultra-low latency—enabling a rich set of AI-powered product experiences. This is a rapidly evolving space with immense opportunities to learn, innovate, and drive industry-wide impact! Responsibilities • Design and implement highly scalable, reliable, and performant distributed systems that power Azure AI traffic management and scheduling. • Drive architecture and technical direction for routing, capacity allocation, and workload optimization services. • Develop algorithms and control-plane systems that intelligently distribute AI workloads across global infrastructure while meeting latency, availability, and cost objectives. • Collaborate with partner teams to onboard new models, regions, and customer offerings while maintaining operational excellence. • Build observability and operational tooling to monitor service health, capacity utilization, traffic patterns, and customer impact in near real-time. • Lead investigations into complex production issues and drive systematic improvements to reliability, resiliency, and platform automation. • Identify and execute opportunities to improve fleet efficiency, reduce operational overhead, and optimize utilization of premium AI infrastructure. • Mentor engineers, review designs and code, and raise engineering standards across the organization. • Drive engineering excellence through testing, automation, documentation, and operational best practices. • Influence long-term platform strategy and contribute to roadmap planning for next-generation AI infrastructure. Qualifications 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. 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 with telemetry, metrics pipelines, or resource scheduling systems. • Familiarity with cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP) and container orchestration (Kubernetes, Service Fabric). • Experience operating large-scale services with stringent reliability and availability requirements. • Experience with distributed storage systems, telemetry platforms, and real-time data processing. • Familiarity with AI/ML infrastructure, GPU fleets, inference serving systems, or large-scale model deployment platforms. • Experience leading cross-team initiatives and driving projects from design through production deployment and operation. 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. #AIINFRA 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.