Senior Software Engineer (Backend)

Overview

Viva Engage connects people through communities, bringing leaders and employees together to share knowledge, clarify priorities, build culture and relationships. Viva Engage (formerly Yammer) is the premier tool to create multi-directional dialogue between tens of millions of employees worldwide every month.

Engage team members are at the forefront of driving AI applications and copilot adoption to make communication and information sharing easy and authentic. Our work supports top challenges for our customers, spreading shared knowledge, including digital safety, trusted security standards, and deep analytics to help our customers maximize reach, reduce inefficiencies, and create a thriving organizational culture. We would love to have you join the team driving innovation, connection, and community for our valued global customers. #VivaEngage

You will join the Viva Engage platform engineering group responsible for building, operating, and evolving core services that power Engage experiences across commercial and sovereign clouds (including GCC-H/GCC-M). The team owns shared backend services, deployment pipelines, and operational readiness for high-availability, compliance-sensitive environments. Work emphasizes reliability, operability, and disciplined execution over feature churn.

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

• Design, implement, and maintain backend services and platform components using Ruby on Rails and Java (Dropwizard).
• Own services end-to-end, including design reviews, implementation, deployment, monitoring, and on-call support.
• Collaborate with partner teams to define requirements, identify dependencies, and deliver changes safely across multiple environments.
• Improve reliability, availability, and operability through better instrumentation, alerting, runbooks, and automation.
• Act as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI) during incidents, driving mitigation, communication, and post-incident learning.
• Contribute to deployment pipelines, release processes, and operational standards, particularly for sovereign cloud environments.
• Continuously refactor and evolve existing systems to reduce operational risk, technical debt, and variance in outcomes.

Qualifications

Required 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.

Other Requirements:

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:

• Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
• OR Bachelor'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.
• Professional experience building and operating backend services in Ruby and/or Java.
• Experience working with web frameworks such as Ruby on Rails and service frameworks such as Dropwizard.
• Experience owning production services, including debugging, incident response, and operational support.
• Experience with distributed systems running in cloud or containerized environments.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, staged deployments, and safe rollout practices.
• Experience operating services in regulated or compliance-sensitive environments.
• Clear written communication skills for design documents, runbooks, and incident reviews.

Software Engineering IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800 - $234,700 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 $158,400 - $258,000 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.