Senior Software Engineer

About the role

Online advertising is one of the fastest-growing multi-billion-dollar businesses on the Internet today. Search engines, publishers, ad networks, and ad exchanges serve billions of advertising impressions every day, creating unique technical challenges at global scale. Microsoft Advertising is innovating rapidly to empower advertisers with industry-leading platforms, AI-powered experiences, and data-driven insights that help them achieve more.

The Microsoft Advertising Platform team builds the next generation of marketing and advertising solutions leveraging large-scale cloud services, advanced analytics, and AI technologies. We process hundreds of terabytes of data, operate highly distributed systems at global scale, and continuously innovate to deliver exceptional experiences for advertisers and partners worldwide.

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer who is passionate about building scalable cloud services, driving technical strategy, and solving complex engineering challenges. In this role, you will lead the design and development of critical platform capabilities, influence architecture across teams, and help shape the future of Microsoft Advertising.

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 evolve highly scalable, reliable, and secure distributed systems.
• Lead the technical design and architecture of complex product features and services, driving engineering excellence and long-term maintainability.
• Partner closely with Product Management, Data Science, Engineering, and Platform teams to define strategy, requirements, and execution plans.
• Drive end-to-end delivery of critical projects, including design reviews, implementation, monitoring, experimentation, and operational excellence.
• Use telemetry, A/B experimentation, and customer insights to identify opportunities, improve product health, and enhance customer experience.
• Mentor engineers, provide technical guidance, and help raise the engineering bar through code reviews, design reviews, and best practices.
• Influence technical direction across multiple teams and contribute to platform-wide architectural decisions.

Requirements

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.

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.

Qualifications

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.
• Proven experience designing, building, deploying, and operating large-scale, highly available, and secure cloud services.
• 5+ years of experience architecting, developing, deploying, and operating distributed systems in a production environment.
• Demonstrated ability to independently drive complex technical initiatives from concept to production with high quality and predictable execution.
• Experience leading technical design discussions and influencing engineering decisions across teams.
• Experience working in ambiguous environments, balancing short-term delivery with long-term technical investments.
• Experience in online advertising, search, e-commerce, AI-powered experiences, or large-scale consumer products is preferred.
• Experience leading large-scale platform modernization, cloud migration, or architectural transformation efforts.
• Experience with AI/ML-enabled products, Copilot experiences, recommendation systems, or data-intensive applications.
• Experience operating services at global scale with focus on reliability, performance, security, and compliance.

Pay

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.