Research and Development (R&D) Service Engineer

Come build community, explore your passions, and do your best work. At Microsoft Research, you will join a global organization of over 1,000 scientists, engineers, and technical staff across the United States, United Kingdom, China, India, Canada, and the Netherlands. Together, we are transforming scientific research through cutting-edge technology, enabling discoveries that shape the future of AI.

As an Research and Development (R&D) Service Engineer in Orchestration Platforms, you will contribute directly to the design, deployment, and support of next-generation orchestration systems that power large-scale AI workloads. This area spans the full lifecycle, from an initial requirement to run a workload, to the ongoing maintenance, monitoring, and optimization of the orchestration platform itself. You will help provide unified architecture and a curated set of tools, so researchers always have the best possible platform for their specific computational needs.

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.

In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

Responsibilities

• You will develop and operate orchestration platforms using Kubernetes and Volcano, ensuring seamless job submission, scheduling, and monitoring for large-scale AI workloads. 
• Contribute to service design by recommending optimal configurations with awareness of cost, security, resiliency, and scalability. 
• Refine cluster and scheduler configurations to improve availability, reliability, observability, and performance. 
• Collaborate closely with Edge, Networking, Reliability, and Automation teams to integrate orchestration with hybrid and distributed systems. 
• Take part in design reviews, share learnings, and help define measurable health and performance metrics for orchestration services. 
• Stay informed of evolving orchestration technologies, adopting new solutions and proactively seeking opportunities to improve.
• Embody our culture and values.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Electrical Engineering, Data Science, Cybersecurity, or related field AND 2+ years technical experience in software engineering, network engineering, service engineering, systems engineering, or industrial controls
• 2+ years of experience managing and supporting Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) clusters (e.g., NVIDIA, AMD) with an emphasis on uptime, availability, and proactive maintenance.
• 1+ year(s) of experience with Kubernetes and Volcano or other advanced workload scheduling frameworks for large-scale Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) jobs.
• 1+ year(s) of experience troubleshooting across hardware, software, networking, and system logs, with a proven ability to resolve complex issues.
• OR equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Electrical Engineering, Data Science, Cybersecurity, or related field AND 5+ years technical experience working with large-scale cloud, GPU or distributed systems
• Proficiency with observability and monitoring platforms (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana) for tracking system health, performance, and service-level indicators.
• Familiarity with CUDA programming, GPU optimization, or large-scale model training environments.
• Experience designing or optimizing orchestration platforms for hybrid or distributed systems spanning edge and cloud.
• Demonstrated ability to improve cost efficiency, reliability, and scalability of services through infrastructure or platform design.
• Prior experience in log analysis, automation, and proactive issue detection to minimize downtime and maximize service health.
• Ability to collaborate across distributed global teams, communicate effectively, and meet uptime and service-level objectives.
• OR Master's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Electrical Engineering, Data Science, Cybersecurity, or related field AND 2+ years technical experience in software engineering, network engineering, service engineering, systems engineering, or industrial controls 
• OR equivalent experience.

Service Engineering IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $100,600 - $199,000 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 $131,400 - $215,400 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 October 3, 2025.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.  We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

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