Senior Hardware Engineer

Job number 662817

Are you passionate about building cool devices and technologies? The Surface Team focuses on building devices that fully express the Windows vision. A fundamental part of our strategy is having desirable and powerful devices that enable the experiences people want and elicit their excitement. Creating these devices involves a close partnership between hardware and software engineers, designers, and manufacturing. We are currently building the next generation and Surface needs you!
Roles and Responsibilities
The surface Quality team is looking for an engineer who is passionate about building amazing PC Hardware, validating high-quality premium devices and working with the latest technologies. We are seeking qualified candidates for Hardware Engineer positions to work on our next generation of Surface Devices. You will be responsible for the design verification, characterization, tuning, and qualification of the hardware for Surface devices. You will develop and perform comprehensive verification and characterization strategies and plans that bridge high-level use cases to product architecture/design to effectively and systematically reveal and screen out defects. The Engineer provides critical analysis of data and test results and drives the right solutions, design changes, optimizations, and trade-offs in the context of business priorities. On a frequent basis, you will be executing, reviewing and auditing tests results, while also introducing and enforcing test techniques and methods to ensure robust product qualification. The work spans through all different PC subsystems, including Audio, Battery, Camera, Display, Motherboard, Power, RF and many more.

You will work in a fast-paced environment and will need to demonstrate the ability to learn new technologies, make progress quickly and with the maturity to identify and fill gaps. Candidates must enjoy working collaboratively with development, program management, software engineers, and partner teams, including suppliers and remotely located engineers in Asia.

This is an excellent opportunity for a motivated engineer with a passion for quality and integrated experiences to thrive in a small team environment. This person will ensure we are delivering the complete end-to-end hardware and software experiences that delight our customers. The ideal candidate would be an engineer with a Major in EE and Minor in CS, or vice-versa.

The Candidate will:
Be responsible for all aspects of validation of the product hardware and software features, with opportunities to stretch more broadly. We need to be the voice of quality and assure the product has the right quality to satisfy our customers and meet the high-quality standards we define for the Microsoft Surface products.
Work closely with software and hardware developers and program managers, located in Redmond and in Asia, to create solid-core designs and enable the testability of the products. It also involves working with external suppliers on test execution and test results auditing.
Review Specs, PRDs, SOW to make sure all Quality aspects are included in the product documentation and confirm that Product Spec and Test Documents are in sync.
Update test documents for all PC Subsystems, with new features or experiences which involves creating and introducing new innovative test techniques or working with internal Microsoft teams to leverage their test collateral.
Working with partners in Asia to make sure they understand the test collateral and are ready to execute the test collateral once HW/SW is available/ready. It also includes validation of testing equipment, fixtures and laboratories.
Conduct technical reviews/audits throughout the development process. This would include reviews/audit of the test architectures, test plans, test cases, and test results from suppliers.
Triage incoming bugs to make sure the right people are working on the issues and be proactive to investigate, repro and debug problems and collaborate with the project team on solutions. Provide first level investigation and repro steps to the developer team for investigation.
Provide inputs or prepare content for quality status of your project. These are communicated to upper management and key stakeholders on a weekly basis and on every HW/SW milestone
Every HW/SW milestone have exit criteria, you are responsible to make sure quality meets this criterion and work towards achieving it.
As part of the Quality team, you are responsible for helping/supporting ongoing self-host activities and hardware manufacturing and validation in the factory. This involves troubleshooting, doing fault analysis and investigation of failures at defective test machines, and root causing the defects.

Minimum Qualification
Demonstrated ability to design PC Hardware comprehensive validation and verification strategies with supporting documentation including test plans, procedures, and reports.
Working knowledge of 2 or more of the following PC subsystems: PCBAs, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Batteries, Networking, 3GPP Technologies, Audio, Camera, Display and Graphics, SSD and Storage, Touch systems, external ports like USB and DisplayPort, Thermal, Power, and UEFI.
Passionate and knowledgeable about Quality: you have what it needs to ship a high-quality Surface device.
Some travel will be required to Asia as appropriate to support validation, design and build activities.
Additional desirable qualifications:
Electrical Engineering knowledge or experience.
Deep background and understanding in Windows and PC architecture, including driver architecture.
Experience with Windows OS Kernel. Familiarity with Windows Drivers developing model. Comfortable in using a Windows debugger to quickly identify and resolve issues spanning multiple subsystems.
Enthusiastic, proactive, motivated and self-driven.
High tolerance to ambiguity and ability make progress in the face of it.

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 status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

Benefits and Perks:

Industry-leading healthcare
Savings and investments
Giving programs
Educational resources
Maternity and paternity leave
Opportunities to network and connect
Discounts on products and services
Generous time away

6 or more years of experience in a relevant field.
Experience in shipping PC hardware and/or software and having been through more than one shipping cycle (same or different product).

BS/MS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science or Computer Engineering, or a related degree and equivalent experience.

• Ability to demonstrate a strong skill-set in analytical problem solving, a history of increasing responsibilities and decision-making experience.
• Ability to work independently, be self-guided and lead and motivate team engineers.
• Excellent interpersonal skills including written and oral communications.