Senior Software Engineer

Overview

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. You will own or collaborate on solutions and design decisions with minimal technical oversight, write code that is extensible, maintainable, well-tested, secure, and performant, and apply AI tools across the software development lifecycle, working alongside system architects, IHVs, and Windows OS teams on a cutting-edge roadmap.

Come join us as we scale our organization to meet the challenge of creating new, innovative, and trustworthy experiences that people love.

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.

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, applying and extrapolating best practices to reliably build code, following well-established methods while applying best practices for new code development.
• Apply AI-native development practices by independently using appropriate AI tools and practices across the software development lifecycle in a disciplined manner, taking responsibility for the content of AI-generated designs, code, and other 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, developing design documents, defining memory-safety boundaries and FFI/interop with existing C/C++ drivers, and ensuring the architecture meets security, performance, and compliance requirements.
• Drive quality and test automation by independently creating clear plans for testing and assuring quality, adding new tests, removing antiquated tests, and aggregating tests to improve the test suite, continually integrating automation into testing, and applying metrics to drive the quality and stability of code.
• Own complex debugging and retrospective root-cause analysis: kernel debugging, crash / memory-dump analysis (WinDbg), and ETW/tracing across driver, firmware, and hardware boundaries to identify root causes of problems.
• Uphold security-as-code, privacy, safety, and accessibility by applying security practices and establishing code invariants so each layer is independently secure, partnering with security stakeholders on threat models and security invariants, and driving the correct processes to achieve a high degree of security, privacy, safety, and accessibility across the driver and services stack.
• Organize work into an actionable roadmap by breaking work into smaller sets of tasks as part of an overall roadmap, and alerting stakeholders as to status, initiating actions to restore system/product/service for simple and complex problems as appropriate.
• 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 and Rust systems/driver patterns with the team, participating in code reviews, providing constructive feedback, contributing to a solid review culture, and maintaining communication with key partners across the Microsoft ecosystem of engineers.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelors 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.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Masters 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 Bachelors 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, 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.

#W+DJOBS

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. 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.