Software Engineer II - Windows Debugging at Microsoft
Redmond, WA
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Jul 28, 2026
Redmond, WA
Jul 29, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A Senior Software Engineer role on the Windows Servicing and Delivery team, focused on designing, building, and maintaining scalable software that improves the reliability, performance, and user experience of Windows. The role requires deep expertise in Windows authentication (LSASS, Kerberos, Entra ID/Active Directory), Windows Client/Server engineering, and cloud platform work on Azure. Strong debugging, source-code analysis, and site reliability skills are central to the day-to-day work.
Senior level · 6+ years · Bachelor's required · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $138,970 (middle half $107,524–$175,762).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 29, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (6)
The posting lists two overlapping degree+experience tiers: a baseline of a Bachelor's + 2 years (general SWE gate) and a specialized screening gate of Bachelor's + 6 years (or equivalent experience). The 6-year figure is treated as the effective minimum for this Senior role.
The degree requirement states 'Bachelor's Degree … OR equivalent experience' in the specialized screening block; however, the baseline block does not include that equivalency. Because the specialized screening block (which governs this role) explicitly allows equivalent experience, the degree requirement could reasonably be None — it is marked Bachelors based on the primary framing, but hiring managers should note the equivalency clause.
The role sits between pure software development (15-1252) and systems/site-reliability administration (15-1244). The explicit SWE title, coding requirements, and architectural responsibilities tip it to 15-1252, but the 4+ years of Windows Client/Server and site reliability engineering experience requirements give 15-1244 genuine weight as a runner-up.
No work location or remote policy is stated in the posting. The CBSA and state fields are left blank accordingly.
Networking protocols and CI/CD appear in narrative/responsibility context rather than a hard-gated requirements block and are marked preferred.
'Perfmon', 'XPerf', and 'ETW/ETL' are listed together as a single troubleshooting skill set; Perfmon is used as the primary name with XPerf and ETW as alternatives.
Read the full posting
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