Senior Software Engineer

About the role

Microsoft Surface Devices is on a mission to deliver iconic end-to-end products across hardware, software, and services that people trust and rely on every day. Central to this mission is the security, reliability, and performance of the low-level software that brings our devices to life. Building these devices requires close collaboration between hardware engineers, software engineers, designers, and manufacturing partners, all with a shared focus on creating industry-defining, secure solutions.

Our team owns the Windows drivers, system services, and debugging tools at the heart of Surface. We are investing in Rust as a first-class systems language for driver development, and we are looking for a Senior Software Engineer with deep Rust expertise to contribute to and help shape that transition. You will start in the Windows Driver in Rust (WDR / windows-drivers-rs / WDK) space, hardening our Rust driver foundations, patterns, and tooling, and grow into tackling other subsystems as the charter expands.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and ship Windows drivers in Rust, both kernel-mode and user-mode, using and advancing the windows-drivers-rs (WDR) framework, WDF/KMDF/UMDF interop, and safe abstractions over native Windows APIs.
• Apply AI-native development practices by independently using appropriate AI tools across the software development lifecycle, taking responsibility for AI-generated designs, code, and assets, and helping other engineers do the same.
• Lead discussions for, and own, driver architecture and design decisions with minimal technical oversight, creating proposals and complex design specifications for Rust driver architecture, defining memory-safety boundaries and FFI/interop with existing C/C++ drivers.
• Drive quality and test automation by creating clear plans for testing, adding new tests, removing antiquated tests, and aggregating tests to improve the test suite, continually integrating automation into testing.
• Own complex debugging and retrospective root-cause analysis: kernel debugging, crash/memory-dump analysis (WinDbg), and ETW/tracing across driver, firmware, and hardware boundaries.
• Uphold security-as-code, privacy, safety, and accessibility by applying security practices, partnering with security stakeholders on threat models, and driving processes to achieve high security standards.
• Organize work into an actionable roadmap by breaking work into smaller tasks and alerting stakeholders as to status.
• Partner on hardware/software co-design by collaborating with electrical, system, firmware, and architecture teams (and IHV/OEM partners) to determine requirements and define features for high-volume consumer products.
• Share learnings and strengthen the team by sharing investigation findings, participating in code reviews, and maintaining communication with key partners across the Microsoft ecosystem.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 4+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including 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 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 C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Rust, or Python.
• OR equivalent experience.
• Experience with the windows-drivers-rs (WDR) / Windows Driver Kit and WDM/WDF/KMDF/UMDF driver models.
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools and practices across the software development lifecycle.
• Working knowledge of OS primitives: memory management, scheduling, interrupts, threading, and ACPI.
• Proven ability to land safe, cross-cutting changes in large, complex, unfamiliar codebases while preserving correctness and performance.
• Experience reviewing HW schematics and a solid understanding of the software lifecycle in a device-development environment.
• Contributions to Rust OSS or other systems/driver open-source projects.
• Demonstrated ability to drive requirements into solutions and collaborate effectively with internal and external (IHV/OEM) partners.
• Deep, demonstrable Rust expertise, including unsafe Rust, FFI/interop, ownership/lifetimes, and building safe abstractions over low-level or OS APIs.
• Experience in design, implementation, debugging, and testing of Windows operating system drivers and/or Windows system software (kernel-mode and/or user-mode).
• Hands-on experience with kernel debugging and memory-dump analysis (WinDbg, ETW/trace).
• Experience working with hardware devices and hardware/software debugging.

Pay

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.