Workloads and Benchmarking Team Lead

The AI Customer Experience (AICE) engineering team within the Azure High Performance Computing (HPC) & AI organization operates at the forefront of designing, deploying, and managing some of the world's most advanced supercomputing platforms. These flagship systems support top-tier AI customers and have directly enabled large-scale frontier model training and breakthrough applications, including workloads underpinning technologies such as ChatGPT. The platforms managed by AICE are consistently represented in globally recognized industry benchmarks and rankings, including Top500, MLPerf, and Graph500.

As the Workloads and Benchmarking Team Lead, you will lead the Specialized Workloads and Benchmarking group, owning the strategy and execution of benchmarking for Azure HPC and AI infrastructure. You will develop deep expertise in HPC and AI workloads, define representative and credible benchmarking methodologies, and drive external publication of results that influence customer adoption and internal platform design. This role combines hands-on technical leadership with people management, including coaching, mentoring, and growing a high-performing team of engineers.

Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. We operate with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize shared goals. Guided by our values of respect, integrity, and accountability, we are committed to building an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

• Develop and maintain deep expertise in current and emerging HPC and AI workloads, including large-scale training, inference, and specialized scientific and enterprise use cases.
• Define and own the end-to-end benchmarking strategy for Azure HPC and AI infrastructure, ensuring benchmarks are representative, reproducible, and aligned with real customer workloads and industry standards.
• Lead performance benchmarking across flagship HPC and AI SKUs, spanning compute, networking, storage, and system software stacks, and analyze results to identify performance characteristics and optimization opportunities.
• Drive Azure participation in industry-recognized benchmarking initiatives, including MLPerf and Top500, coordinating submissions and ensuring methodological rigor and compliance.
• Publish and publicize benchmarking results through technical blog posts, whitepapers, conference talks, and industry presentations to position Azure as a leader in HPC and AI performance.
• Coach, mentor, and manage a team of engineers, setting clear technical direction, fostering professional growth, and ensuring delivery against organizational priorities.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or related technical discipline AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
  • OR equivalent experience.

Other Qualifications:

• 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:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
  • OR related technical field AND 10+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript,
  • OR Python
  • OR Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 4+ years people management experience.

Software Engineering M5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $139,900 - $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:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

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

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.