Principal Firmware Engineer

Provide firmware requirements and architectural guidance to hardware teams, including silicon design, board design, and platform integration teams. Create firmware architecture and requirements that align with Azure features, service needs, and platform roadmap priorities. Define and maintain firmware subsystem interfaces, dependencies, and design principles for first party silicon programs. Partner with silicon architects, board engineers, and firmware developers to ensure firmware requirements are feasible, testable, and complete. Develop security requirements and threat models for firmware features, platform capabilities, and cross-domain interfaces. Drive architecture reviews and technical decisions for firmware capabilities across boot, platform initialization, manageability, security, telemetry, and recovery flows. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure firmware designs support reliability, performance, security, and operational excellence at cloud scale. Influence design tradeoffs early in the product cycle to reduce integration risk and improve long-term firmware maintainability. Support validation planning by defining expected firmware behavior, feature coverage, and acceptance criteria for platform bring-up and release readiness. Diagnose complex architecture and integration issues across silicon, board, and firmware boundaries. Design, implement, debug, and review shared firmware components and drivers with attention to memory management; improve automated tests, continuous integration, DevOps workflows, and developer efficiency; and contribute to Rust adoption and effective AI-assisted development practices. 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. These requirements include, but are not limited to, the following specialized security screening: This role will require access to information that is controlled for export under export control regulations, potentially under the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations or Export Administration Regulations, the EU Dual Use Regulation, and/or other export control regulations. As a condition of employment, the successful candidate will be required to provide either proof of their country of citizenship or proof of their U.S. permanent residency or other protected status (e.g., under 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3)) for assessment of eligibility to access the export-controlled information. To meet this legal requirement, and as a condition of employment, the successful candidate's citizenship will be verified with a valid passport. Lawful permanent residents, refugees, and asylees may verify status using other documents, where applicable. Strong coding experience in C, C++, Rust, or similar low-level programming languages used for firmware and embedded systems. Demonstrated experience defining firmware architecture and requirements for complex hardware platforms. Experience working with silicon design teams, board design teams, or other hardware engineering partners. Experience translating product or cloud service requirements into firmware specifications and technical design decisions. Experience writing, debugging, and reviewing code for boot firmware, embedded runtime, or platform initialization components. Ability to communicate effectively across technical and non-technical audiences and influence cross-functional partners. 10+ years of experience in firmware, embedded systems, or hardware platform architecture. Experience with Python or other scripting languages used for automation, validation, and tooling. Experience working in pre-silicon environments. Experience with boot firmware, platform initialization, recovery, telemetry, security, and manageability features. Experience with RTOS-based firmware development. Familiarity with hardware interfaces and protocols such as PCIe, I3C, I2C, SPI, and USB. Experience working with Azure service teams and aligning platform firmware to service requirements. Strong understanding of hardware/software co-design and feature bring-up on custom silicon platforms. Experience influencing architecture across multiple engineering teams and product groups. Experience performing low-level debugging, performance analysis, and root cause analysis in code spanning silicon and board boundaries. Experience with firmware validation, platform debugging, and root cause analysis across silicon and board boundaries. Proven ability to operate in ambiguous environments and drive clear technical direction.