Software Engineer II - Data Platform & Database Systems

** Overview*
* Windows runs on over a billion devices worldwide, and the Windows Data team turns the signal from that ecosystem into the insights that shape the product. We manage, optimize, improve, and extend several multi-petabyte modern MPP (massively parallel processing) database systems - engineering at a scale where familiar solutions stop working and the harder, more interesting problems begin.

This is a code-intensive role. As a  
** Software Engineer II** , you'll work across cloud services, data platform engineering, database systems, and supporting data engineering, with room to go deep into the internals of distributed data and database engines: query execution, storage formats, and performance.

We're an AI-native team. Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted development and agentic tooling are part of the daily craft here - not just to produce code but to build tools and observe cloud-based systems at scale.

This role is also at the intersection between Windows and data, potentially helping hundreds of millions of Windows users have a better experience.

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*
* ** Day to Day Responsibilities*
* + Build at a scale that changes the problem. Deploy, extend and operate multi-petabyte MPP - Star Rocks, Click House, Trino/Presto, Spark, Druid, Kusto.

+ Go deep into database internals. Work on query execution, vectorized processing, cost-based optimization, and columnar storage formats such as Parquet and Arrow, and understand these engines from the inside out.

+ Work across the stack and across languages. Move between services in Python, Java, and Go and performance-critical native code in C++ - deep expertise in any single language isn't expected, just a readiness to follow the problem wherever it leads.

+ Engineer the lakehouse on cloud infrastructure working with open table formats (Delta Lake, Iceberg, Hudi, Paimon) and build on cloud services and container orchestration with Kubernetes.

+ Practice AI-native engineering. Use AI-assisted development and agentic tooling as part of the daily workflow, build AI directly in decision-making systems and operations, and help define how the team uses it on real production systems.

+ Own components and partner for impact. Shape architecture, make build-vs-adopt decisions, and own components end to end while partnering with data scientists and product managers on data that shapes decisions for hundreds of millions of Windows users.

** Qualifications*
* ** Required Qualifications*
* + Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 2+ 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*
* + 3+ years of proven coding and debugging skills in object-oriented languages. C#, C++, Java, or equivalent.

+ Practical experience with Kubernetes, Star Rocks, Clickhouse, Kafka, Flink, Trino, real-time/NRT systems, open-source data platforms.

+ Scripting language experience Python and SQL.

+

Experience with cloud platforms and services, such as Azure, etc. 

+ Ability to collaborate effectively with teammates and work successfully in a group environment.

+ Data science, experimentation, or model-building adjacent experience.

+ Experience in designing, developing, and shipping code with secure continuous integration and continuous delivery practices (CI/CD). 

+

Experience with data streaming, data modeling, data warehousing, and ETL (extract/transform/load). 

W+DJOBS

Software Engineering IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $102,100 - $202,200 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area,…