New 
Principal Cloud Network Engineer
 Microsoft | |
 United States, Washington, Redmond | |
 Sep 05, 2025 | |
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OverviewAzure Cloud & AI infrastructure is positioned at the forefront of the next industrial revolution. The Azure Fiber & AI team is a key part of Azure, dedicated to designing, building, and operating the Global Optical Network-the backbone of connectivity for seamless interaction with Azure and services such as Teams, Xbox, Office, Bing, and OpenAI's ChatGPT worldwide. With an emphasis on multiple revolutionary optical technologies, such as Silicon Photonics (SiPho), Co-Packaged Optics (CPO), Open Line Systems (OLS), Hollow Core Fiber (HCF) technologies, Azure Fiber & AI is preparing for exponential growth fueled by ongoing Cloud & AI success and emerging unprecedented demands. We are looking for a Principal Cloud Network Engineer to join our Azure Fiber & AI team. In this position you will play a crucial role in the strategic expansion and operational excellence of our solid core and hollow core fiber networks. You will lead the development and implementation of components and systems from design through deployment, operations, and automation, as well as contributing to the innovation of transformative technologies such as, SiPho, CPO, and HCF optics for AI. Additionally, you will spearhead the development and integration of advanced AI-driven network management, quality monitoring and improvement software, guaranteeing the highest quality of fiber & optical assets. This position is highly visible, situated in an area of significant and growing investment for Microsoft, and offers substantial opportunities for technical and career advancement. This position places you at the cutting edge of the AI network revolution, merging infrastructure design and expansion to support AI initiatives with the deployment of AI-based software tools for network buildout and operations. Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.
Responsibilities Performs testing and validation of network devices, firmware, and configurations; defines and implements test cases with automation tools and exposes test coverage gaps.Optical Systems Testing and Validation: Conduct rigorous testing and validation of optical grey and WDM transceivers, transponders and line systems. Utilize automation tools to establish test cases, and identify gaps in test coverage, ensuring the transceivers' high-performance compatibility with AI applications.Acts as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI) and guides other engineers by developing and following the playbook, working on call to monitor system/product/service for degradation, downtime, or interruptions, alerting stakeholders about status and initiates actions to restore system/product/service for simple and complex problems when appropriate.Operational Efficiency: Integrate state-of-the-art AI based software tooling into our operations and change management frameworks to ensure we always have the highest quality dark fiber assets possible.Proactively seeks new knowledge and adapts to new trends, technical solutions, and patterns that will improve the availability, reliability, efficiency, observability, and performance of products while also driving consistency in monitoring and operations at scale.Project and Feature Leadership: Utilize your in-depth expertise in coherent and direct-detection optical technologies to steer project and release plans in coordination with project managers and stakeholders. Make sure these plans align with the overarching objectives of optical networking optimized for AI systems. | |