Senior Software Development Engineer
Do you want to transform the way we build online services at Microsoft? Do you want to have impact across multiple products and services such as Live, MSN and Microsoft.com? Do you like building systems that process large streams of data in near real time? Then join the Microsoft Experimentation Platform team.
The Experimentation Platform enables product groups at Microsoft to innovate using controlled experiments with live users. The platform allows teams to test new ideas quickly using the best-known scientific method for establishing causality between a feature and its effects: randomized experimental design. The basic methodology in controlled experiments is to expose a percentage of users to a new treatment, measure the effect on metrics of interest, and run statistical tests to determine whether the differences are statistically significant, thus establishing causality. Additional analysis against the collected data can provide more insights and enable testing other hypotheses. Runtime monitoring, while the experiment is running, enables early shutdown of experiments that are underperforming. The safety provided by this architecture encourages quicker deployments without extensive testing and speeds innovation. Experimentation, when used properly, encourages more agile design and release cycles and can literally transform the way we produce software in the online space.
We are looking for Senior SDEs to build out both our data collection and analysis subsystems. The data collection subsystem consists of a highly-scalable, highly-available instrumentation platform built on web services, Cosmos, and SQLServer 2005. Working on this subsystem you will build a pipeline that not only processes data quickly and reliably but is also able to scale up to handle massive websites like MSN.com. You will work with cutting edge technologies including Cosmos and Dryad as you process some of the largest data sets in the world.
The analysis subsystem consists of a web application that performs statistical analysis on the data and exposes results to experimenters. Here, you will craft a user experience that presents the results of statistical tests quickly and accurately yet in a way that is understandable to nontechnical users. You will explore novel ways to visualize statistical data so that even non-statisticians can correctly interpret the results.
Both subsystems make extensive use of web services and are based on .Net and C#.
Our team functions like a startup, giving you endless opportunities to learn and develop and giving you responsibility for a substantial portion of the design and architecture of our platform. You will also see the result of your work quickly: we use agile programming methodologies and test-driven development to deliver a high-quality platform at a rapid pace, deploying updates to our system as often as once per month. Finally, you will have the opportunity to learn from top engineers in the field as well as mentor more junior members of the team.
Ideal candidates will have:
Strong proficiency in architecture and design, including experience in web application development, and web services.
Strong object-oriented programming skills in C++, C#, or Java.
Strong interest in either high-performance, high-availability software/services or reporting and data visualization.
BS or MS degree in Computer Science plus at least 5 years of experience.
Strong verbal and written communication skills.
Energy and desire to deliver high-quality software quickly through iterative development.
Additionally, experience in web-based GUI development and data warehousing techniques is highly valued.
Strong statistical knowledge, while useful, is not required.
Help us bring the vision that Admiral Grace Hopper set: one accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions.
Please submit your resume to rkjobs at microsoft dot you know what or use the following link to register via microsoft careers site https://careers.microsoft.com/JobDetails.aspx?ss=&pg=0&so=&rw=2&jid=5014&jlang=EN You'll need a Live ID account to apply.