Principal Hardware Engineer

Microsoft Silicon, Cloud Hardware, and Infrastructure Engineering (SCHIE) is the team behind Microsoft’s expanding Cloud Infrastructure and responsible for powering Microsoft’s “Intelligent Cloud” mission. SCHIE delivers the core infrastructure and foundational technologies for Microsoft's over 200 online businesses including Bing, MSN, Office 365, Xbox Live, Teams, OneDrive, and the Microsoft Azure platform globally with our server and data center infrastructure, security and compliance, operations, globalization, and manageability solutions. Our focus is on smart growth, high efficiency, and delivering a trusted experience to customers and partners worldwide and we are looking for passionate engineers to help achieve that mission.  The Azure Memory & Storage (AMS) Commodity Quality and Validation Engineering (CQVE) team is responsible for ensuring storage device quality, reliability, and compliance before deployment at Azure scale. We are seeking a highly motivated HDD Lead Engineer to drive the Certified Device List (CDL) qualification program for hard disk drives (HDDs). This role will lead HDD qualification strategy, develop and enhance validation test suites, translate industry and Microsoft requirements into test procedures, partner closely with HDD suppliers, and drive continuous quality improvements based on fleet learnings. The successful candidate will play a key role in delivering high-quality HDD solutions that meet Azure's reliability, performance, security, and compatibility requirements while helping prevent validation escapes and fleet-impacting issues We are looking for a   Principal Hardware Engineer to join our team!

Translate Microsoft, OCP, security, reliability, and platform requirements into comprehensive HDD validation strategies, test plans, and qualification procedures. Design, develop, and maintain automated HDD CDL test suites covering functionality, performance, reliability, power, security, interoperability, and fleet-specific validation scenarios Analyze fleet learnings, field incidents, and validation escapes to identify coverage gaps and drive continuous enhancement of HDD qualification methodologies and test content. Partner closely with HDD suppliers to review qualification results, debug failures, assess corrective actions, and ensure compliance with Microsoft quality and certification requirements Lead technical discussions with cross-functional teams including platform engineering, storage architecture, reliability engineering, and datacenter operations to align qualification requirements with Azure deployment needs. Perform deep technical analysis of HDD failures using protocol traces, logs, telemetry, and diagnostic data to identify root causes and drive issue resolution with suppliers Drive qualification readiness for next-generation HDD technologies and ensure new devices meet Azure requirements for reliability, performance, compatibility, security, and serviceability Influence industry specifications, Microsoft validation standards, and supplier test methodologies by identifying opportunities to improve qualification coverage and overall device quality. Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership in storage validation, test development, qualification practices, and HDD technology advancements.

Required/minimum qualifications Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 7+ years technical engineering experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience 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