Senior Software Engineer - OneDrive Photos Platform Services

As a Senior Software Engineer on our team, you’ll architect and evolve the large-scale services that index, understand, and curate photos for our customers. You’ll integrate state-of-the-art AI into production systems, partner closely with mobile and client teams to deliver end-to-end experiences, and drive technical decisions that span cloud service design, scalability, and performance. This opportunity will allow you to shape AI-powered features used worldwide, deepen your expertise in large-scale distributed systems, and have direct impact on how customers experience their memories.

Our stack includes C#/ASP.NET for backend services, SQL and Azure Blob Storage for data, and integrations with a wide range of Azure services, cutting-edge AI models, and modern frameworks.

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.

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.
• Demonstrated ability to quickly learn new systems and adapt new methodologies to evolving service requirements.
• Proficiency in software engineering best practices including debugging, algorithm design, and complex problem solving.
• Experience designing and delivering large-scale, highly available, and reliable services, preferably with end-to-end ownership.

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 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 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 equivalent experience.
• 3+ years of experience designing and developing services on cloud platforms (Azure preferred) and working with distributed system architectures.
• 2+ years of experience building scalable infrastructure for AI products, including secure data pipelines, model deployment systems, and cloud environments, preferably having experience with AzureML, ONNX Runtime, PyTorch, TensorFlow, vector search, or equivalent technologies.
• Experience collaborating in team-based environments and contributing to the growth of early-career engineers through structured mentorship and support. 

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

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until September 2, 2025.

• Collaborates with product managers, architects, and partner teams to define technical requirements, dependencies, and solution designs for large-scale, highly available backend services supporting OneDrive Photos experiences.
• Designs and implements distributed, cloud-based services on Azure that process, store, and serve petabyte-scale photo and video content with high reliability, security, and performance.
• Creates, implements, optimizes, debugs, refactors, and reuses code to establish and improve performance and maintainability, effectiveness, and return on investment (ROI).
• Leverages subject-matter expertise of product features and partners with appropriate stakeholders (e.g., project managers) to drive a workgroup's project plans, release plans, and work items.
• Acts as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI) for critical services, driving root cause analysis, incident mitigation, and continuous improvements in reliability and scalability.
• Proactively seeks new knowledge and adapts to new trends, technical solutions, and patterns that will improve the availability, reliability, efficiency, observability, and performance of products while also driving consistency in monitoring and operations at scale.