Reston, United States Role overview
About this role
Are you interested in building and securing cloud‑scale software that protects some of the world’s most sensitive and mission‑critical environments? As a Software Engineer in Microsoft’s Specialized Cloud team, you’ll help design, deliver, and secure highly reliable services that underpin both internal security platforms and customer‑facing cloud offerings. Your work will directly contribute to protecting mission‑critical environments that demand the highest levels of trust, compliance, and operational excellence.
In this role, you’ll solve complex systems and security challenges in a fast-paced, agile setting. You’ll collaborate with experienced engineers to solve complex problems in software engineering, distributed systems, security engineering, and reliability, leveraging modern tools and engineering practices. This is an opportunity to grow your career in a position that demands rigorous engineering, robust operational excellence, and an obsession with security and reliability.
At Microsoft, our mission—to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more—guides how we partner with customers to deliver trusted, impactful solutions. With a growth mindset culture, we innovate responsibly and measure success by shared progress—people, teams, and customers. Join us to do meaningful work that changes the world and helps shape what’s next for everyone.
Responsibilities
- Design, implement, test, and maintain cloud‑scale services and platform components used in security‑critical and highly regulated environments.
- Build features and systems that support security, compliance, management, and reliability scenarios for both internal Microsoft platforms and customer‑facing services.
- Write clean, maintainable, and well‑tested code following Microsoft engineering standards and best practices.
- Participate in design discussions, architecture reviews, and code reviews to ensure solutions are scalable, secure, and resilient.
- Collaborate closely with partner teams such as security, operations, program management, and compliance to deliver end‑to‑end solutions.
- Investigate and resolve live‑site issues, contributing to strong operational excellence and service reliability.
- Use telemetry, data, and customer feedback to improve system performance, reliability, and security posture.
- Participate in 24x7 on-call rotations to support service health, respond to incidents, and help restore service quickly and safely.
- Apply secure‑by‑design principles throughout the development lifecycle, including threat modeling and defense‑in‑depth practices.
- Demonstrate a growth mindset by learning new technologies, seeking feedback, and gradually taking on broader technical ownership.
- Embody our culture and values.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or related technical discipline with proven experience coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
- OR equivalent experience.
Other Requirements:
Security Clearance Requirements: Candidates must be able 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:
- The successful candidate must have an active U.S. Government Top Secret Security Clearance. Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. Failure to maintain or obtain the appropriate clearance and/or customer screening requirements may result in employment action up to and including termination.
- Clearance Verification: This position requires successful verification of the stated security clearance to meet federal government customer requirements. You will be asked to provide clearance verification information prior to an offer of employment.
- Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.
- Citizenship & Citizenship Verification: This position requires verification of U.S. citizenship due to citizenship-based legal restrictions. Specifically, this position supports United States federal, state, and/or local United States government agency customer and is subject to certain citizenship-based restrictions where required or permitted by applicable law. To meet this legal requirement, citizenship will be verified via a valid passport, or other approved documents, or verified US government Clearance.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or related technical field AND 1+ year(s) technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Rust, or Python.
- OR Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field with proven experience coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Rust, or Python.
- OR equivalent experience.
- Experience with CI/CD systems and Infrastructure as Code using tools such as Azure DevOps, Bicep, Terraform, or ARM.
- Experience building or operating cloud-based services on Azure.
- Knowledge of software engineering fundamentals including design, testing, debugging, code reviews, and secure development practices.
- Ability to collaborate effectively across engineering teams and communicate technical concepts clearly.
- Experience with distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, or large-scale service operations.
- Experience with observability platforms, telemetry, monitoring, and operational excellence practices.
- Experience supporting regulated, sovereign, government, or compliance-sensitive environments.
- Familiarity with deployment automation, release management, and service reliability engineering practices.
Software Engineering IC2 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $85,400 - $168,100 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 $111,100 - $183,700 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
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.
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