Senior Firmware Engineer

Senior Firmware Engineer

Overview

At Microsoft, we are redefining how cloud platforms are built and validated—driving industry‑leading reliability, quality, and lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) for our worldwide customers. Our Firmware System Engineering (FSE) team plays a critical role in bringing up, integrating, validating, and hardening system firmware stacks for next‑generation server platforms used across Azure datacenters.

We are looking for a highly motivated Senior Engineer who is passionate about system‑level thinking, deep debugging, and scalable validation, and who thrives in a cross‑functional, fast‑paced environment spanning silicon, firmware, OS, and manufacturing.

Role Overview

As a Senior Engineer in the Firmware System Engineering team, you will own platform‑level firmware integration and validation across SoC firmware, BIOS, BMC, and OS interactions. You will contribute directly to early silicon bring‑up, de‑risking of firmware releases, customer issue debug, and continuous improvement of validation strategies, tooling, and automation—building on the foundations already established by the team.

Responsibilities

• Own end‑to‑end system firmware integration, validation, and debugging across multiple domains within server architecture, including SoC firmware, BIOS, BMC, and OS interactions.
• Apply system‑level “big picture” thinking to validate that integrated firmware stacks align with architectural intent, platform requirements, and product quality goals.
• Drive early platform bring‑up and release qualification, identifying issues early and working with partner teams to ensure systematic closure across subsequent releases.
• Define and execute comprehensive validation strategies:
  create validation plans, develop and maintain test collateral, automate execution, and perform deep triage/debug of observed failures.
• Act as a platform‑level point of contact for complex integration and customer‑impacting issues, ensuring disciplined root‑cause analysis and long‑term fixes.
• Collaborate deeply with architects, SoC FW, BIOS, BMC, OS, silicon validation, and program management teams—both for day‑to‑day execution and for shaping long‑term roadmap and quality improvements.
• Continuously improve test coverage, release readiness, and debug efficiency by introducing new validation methods, automation frameworks, and data‑driven quality metrics.
• Design and maintain automated dashboards and reports to reflect platform health, validation status, and firmware quality, enabling informed decision‑making across stakeholders.
• Leverage strong knowledge of Windows and Linux OS internals to triage system‑level issues across firmware, drivers, and OS layers.
• Apply working knowledge of low‑speed IO protocols (SPI, I2C, I3C) and high‑speed interconnects (PCIe, CXL) during integration, validation, and debug activities.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent industry experience.
• 8+ years of professional experience in design, development, integration, validation, or system‑level debugging of complex embedded or server platforms.
• Strong problem‑solving mindset with excellent debugging and troubleshooting skills at system scale.
• Hands‑on programming experience in Python, C, or C++.

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience in system‑level firmware integration and validation, including setup and ownership of validation infrastructure.
• Experience with automation frameworks (e.g., Robot Framework) and large‑scale test automation.
• Background in server‑class platforms or datacenter hardware.
• Proven experience in creating validation test plans, developing test content, and automating execution to meet validation objectives.
• Hands‑on experience with CI/CD pipelines for firmware integration and validation.
• Exposure to firmware development and validation across multiple HW environments (FPGA, emulation, simulation, pre‑silicon and post‑silicon).
• Deep experience in system‑level and customer‑impacting issue triage, including managing production‑level issues and cross‑team escalations.
• Working knowledge of hardware debug tools such as JTAG, oscilloscopes, and logic analyzers.
• Experience in automation framework setup, deployment, and scaling.
• Strong communication skills with a proven ability to collaborate across geographically distributed, cross‑functional teams.

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.

Experience Level

Senior Level