Software Engineer II (Build Systems)

Overview

Microsoft is a company where passionate innovators come to collaborate, envision what can be and take their careers further. This is a world of more possibilities, more innovation, more openness, and the sky is the limit thinking in a cloud-enabled world.

Microsoft’s Azure Data engineering team is leading the transformation of analytics in the world of data with products like databases, data integration, big data analytics, messaging & real-time analytics, and business intelligence. The products our portfolio include Microsoft Fabric, Azure SQL DB, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure PostgreSQL, Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Service Bus, Azure Event Grid, and Power BI. Our mission is to build the data platform for the age of AI, powering a new class of data-first applications and driving a data culture.

Within Azure Data, the databases team builds and maintains Microsoft’s operational Database systems. We store and manage data in a structured way to enable multitude of applications across various industries. We are on a journey to enable developer friendly, mission-critical, AI enabled operational Databases across relational, non-relational and OSS offerings.

We are hiring a Software Engineer 2 to join the Azure Cosmos DB team, where you will be working on a large-scale distributed operational database. In this role, you will work as a build engineer to ensure maximal developer productivity can be achieved for 100s of engineers across our organization. This role focuses on build systems, CI pipelines, and developer workflows to ensure fast, reliable, and reproducible builds. You will work closely with product engineers and platform teams to improve the efficiency and reliability of our development lifecycle. Build and release engineers play a critical role in the software lifecycle by defining the steps required to build, test, package, and release software reliably across environments.

We do not just value differences or different perspectives. We seek them out and invite them in so we can tap into the collective power of everyone in the company. As a result, our customers are better served.

Responsibilities

Build Systems
> Design and maintain scalable build systems and tooling
> Optimize build performance, caching, and dependency management
> Support cross-platform builds
> Ensure deterministic and reproducible builds

CI/CD Pipeline
> Build and maintain CI pipelines for automated builds and testing
> Improve pipeline reliability and reduce build/test latency
> Integrate build pipelines with release and deployment systems

Release & Artifact Management
> Design artifact packaging and versioning systems
> Support release automation and rollback strategies
> Manage build metadata and release metrics

Build Reliability
> Diagnose and fix build failures and flaky pipelines
> Maintain build infrastructure and automation tooling
> Collaborate with engineers to resolve build and dependency issues

Embody our culture and values

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor’s 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.

Job Requirements: Other & Additional

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/Additional Qualifications

Experience building CI/CD pipelines and automation systems.
Strong scripting skills (Python, Bash, or similar).
Sufficient in git version control, git-ops, Docker, Kubernetes.
Familiar with Azure DevOps and/or GitHub Actions.
Strong debugging and problem-solving skills.
Experience supporting large codebases or monorepos.
Experience optimizing large build pipelines.
Experience with remote build execution or distributed build systems.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital s…