Data Engineer II at Microsoft
Redmond, WA
—
Aug 17, 2026
Redmond, WA
Sep 25, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
This role designs and operates an AI-driven data platform where agentic systems handle ingestion, transformation, and serving of datasets with minimal manual pipeline work. The engineer will build orchestration, guardrails, evaluations, and self-healing observability for reliable agent-run data operations, while grounding AI-generated outputs in governed, deterministic data. It suits a senior data/platform architect with hands-on experience in large-scale distributed systems and modern AI agentic frameworks.
Senior level · 2+ years
“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
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $142,568 (middle half $111,775–$173,013).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Aug 20, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (5)
The posting mentions 'specialized security screenings' but does not gate on any specific US clearance level — treated as no clearance requirement.
The degree requirement accepts a Master's + 1 year, a Bachelor's + 2 years, OR equivalent experience, so no formal degree is hard-required.
Total experience minimum is set to 2 years (the lower of the two stated paths); the Master's path requires only 1 year, but the Bachelor's path (2 years) is the more common route.
KQL and SQL are listed together as interchangeable query language options ('KQL or SQL') — captured as a single requirement with alternatives.
The role straddles data platform architecture (15-1243) and applied AI/software engineering (15-1252); 15-1243 is chosen as primary because the core deliverable is the data platform architecture, with AI agentic systems as the primary mechanism rather than the primary product.
Read the full posting
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