Microsoft
Cloud Infrastructure & DevToolsDirect employer career site

Principal Performance Architect

Pay
$142,800 – $274,800 per year
Location
United States
Job type
Full-time
Level
Executive
Experience
8+ years
Education
Bachelor's degree
Listed
29 days ago

Skills & highlights for this role

  • Microsoft Cloud Background Check
  • performance modeling
  • SoC architecture
  • Python
  • C++
  • workload analysis

Also useful

  • GPU architecture
  • C

Stated benefits & perks

  • Health

Overview

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.

As Microsoft's cloud business continues to grow the ability to deploy new offerings and hardware infrastructure on time, in high volume with high quality and lowest cost is of paramount importance.

To achieve this goal, the MAIA Architecture Team is instrumental in defining and delivering operational measures of success for hardware manufacturing, improving the planning process, quality, delivery, scale and sustainability related to Microsoft cloud hardware.

We are looking for engineers with a dedicated passion for customer focused solutions, insight and industry knowledge to envision and implement future technical solutions that will manage and optimize the Cloud infrastructure.

We are looking for a Principal Performance Architect to join the team.

Responsibilities

  • Actively collaborate with architects, and provide critical feedback for future SoC
  • Use models to analyze performance bottlenecks in SoC for critical AI workloads
  • Opportunities for performance and power optimizations, and trade-offs on AI accelerators
  • Develop and test SoC and IP models, including model integration
  • Continuous collaboration with design and performance verification teams to close on SoC performance

Required/minimum qualifications

  • Doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 3+ years technical engineering experience OR Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, 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 position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Preferred Qualifications

  • MS or PhD in relevant CS/EE/CE
  • Experience in architecture and workload analysis on GPUs
  • 4+ years of experience with Python, C, C++
  • 6+ years of experience with performance modeling at various levels of abstraction, and analysis

Pay and benefits

Silicon Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 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 $188,000 - $304,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Read the original posting

From Microsoft's careers page, first listed on Rolev.ai on October 11, 2026. Rolev.ai is not the employer.

How Rolev.ai helps with this application

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Common questions

What is the salary for the Principal Performance Architect role at Microsoft?

The Principal Performance Architect posting at Microsoft states compensation of $142,800 – $274,800 per year. It is listed as a full-time position. Final pay may depend on location, experience, and interview evaluation on Microsoft's official career site.

Where is the Principal Performance Architect job at Microsoft located?

This Principal Performance Architect position at Microsoft is located in United States. Always check Microsoft's application page for specific state eligibility or relocation policies.

What qualifications are required for Principal Performance Architect at Microsoft?

For the Principal Performance Architect role, Microsoft highlights 8+ years of relevant experience; a bachelor's degree; experience with performance modeling, SoC architecture, Python, C++, workload analysis. Rolev.ai can score your existing resume against these requirements and show any skill gaps before you apply.

How do I apply for the Principal Performance Architect position at Microsoft?

This listing links directly to Microsoft's application page. You can apply directly on Microsoft's site, or use Rolev.ai to check your resume fit, generate a zero-hallucination tailored resume and cover letter for this posting, and autofill the application form in 1 click with the Rolev.ai Chrome extension. You always review the form and press Submit yourself.