Senior Software Engineering Manager

Overview/Job Description

Microsoft is committed to building Azure into an AI supercomputer for the world and to enable the use of this infrastructure to responsibly develop breakthrough foundational AI, including large language models (LLMs) that can empower people to better harness the world’s knowledge, revolutionize the way we interact with technology and improve user experience.  

To foster Microsoft’s leadership in this field, we have launched a transformative program to develop the next generation of leaders in Artificial Intelligence (AI).  Based at the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, WA, and at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center, in Cambridge, MA, the Microsoft AI Development Acceleration Program (MAIDAP), which is part of the Office of the CTO, recruits motivated individuals from Bachelors (BS), Masters (MS), Masters of Business (MBA) and Doctorate programs to join a two-year journey solving some of Microsoft’s most complex AI challenges. MAIDAP collaborates closely with engineering teams across the company to drive innovation and deliver real-world impact.  

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineering Manager to help shape the future of Microsoft’s AI talent and build transformative, AI-powered experiences for our customers.  

In this role, you’ll guide our efforts by leading a team of early in profession software engineers, working with our partners to identify and build strategic examples of AI innovation, and delivering a framework for integration of our modules into Microsoft’s AI Platform. As a Senior Software Engineering Manager on our team, you will shape our program’s development lifecycle, establish engineering best practices, and play a key role in hiring and nurturing a diverse, collaborative and effective team. 

We embrace a culture which is customer focused, collaborative, fun loving and iterative—one that delivers continuously and drives engineering excellence. If you are a software engineer who is passionate about developing people and looking to have a huge impact at Microsoft in AI, this could be your ideal role.

Responsibilities

• Technical Oversight: Provide hands-on technical guidance, review designs, code implementation and Pull Requests (PRs), define Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)/data contracts, architect scalable systems, and establish evaluation frameworks to de-risk complex systems.

• Recruit and lead a group of new-to-career software engineers focused on advancing Microsoft’s AI capabilities by working on projects sourced from product teams across the company.

• Partner with multiple engineering and business partners across the company to ensure that the solutions meet their business goals and can be successfully integrated into their codebase.

• Create an inclusive work environment where every employee can effectively engage and wants to be part of the team. Provide ongoing feedback that helps your direct reports improve their performance. 

• AI Strategy & Architecture: Set direction for AI-native security experiences and platform components, LLMs vs classical Machine Learning (ML), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) design, grounding, model routing/fallbacks, and safety guardrails to meet customer outcomes and Service Level Objectives (SLOs).

• Responsible AI & Compliance: Ensure privacy, security, and Responsible AI guardrails are considered from day one. Coordinate safety reviews, abuse prevention, compliance, and incident readiness.

• Architect the framework for abstraction and reuse of our AI modules for integration into the AI platform, choose the appropriate internal or external technologies, incorporate research, create design and validation collateral, including test automations that are reused across the program. 

• Work closely with other members of the Office of the CTO to support strategic programs.

Qualifications 

Required/minimum 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. 

Additional or 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. 

• 3+ years of experience as a technical lead, including mentoring and growing early-in-career software engineers  

• 3+ years of experience with cloud architectures  

• 2+ years of experience in building AI or data science platforms  

• 2+ years of Azure experience  

• Experience consuming and contributing to open-source software projects 

• Experience working with distributed teams 

• Experience with evaluating, fine-tuning and deploying LLM and more traditional machine learning solutions   

• 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.