Software Engineer II

Are you passionate about building high-scale, low-latency systems that power intelligent ad experiences across billions of daily transactions? The Microsoft Audience Network (MSAN) is Microsoft’s native and video advertising platform, enabling advertisers to reach audiences across MSN, Outlook, Microsoft Edge, and premium publisher partners. MSAN powers engaging, brand-safe ad experiences by combining Microsoft’s rich user intelligence with large-scale ad delivery systems.

As part of the MSAN engineering team, you’ll help design and build the next generation of backend services that enable OpenRTB integrations, video and display ad delivery, supply optimization, and real-time bidding. You’ll work on systems that handle massive request volumes with strict latency, availability, and reliability requirements, ensuring advertisers and publishers achieve maximum value from every impression.

The problems you’ll tackle include designing highly scalable APIs, optimizing ad selection and auction logic, enhancing system observability, improving live-site resilience, and driving innovation in video and display ad serving. You’ll collaborate closely with product managers, applied scientists, and engineers across Microsoft Ads to deliver impactful solutions that scale globally and serve millions of advertisers and users every day.

We’re looking for a Software Engineer II who is curious, collaborative, and passionate about solving complex technical challenges. If you thrive in fast-paced environments, care deeply about engineering excellence, and want to build systems that make a measurable impact on the future of advertising—this is the team for you.

At Microsoft, our 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.

• Design and implement scalable backend services that power real-time ad delivery and decisioning for Microsoft Audience Network (MSAN), optimizing for ultra-low latency, fault tolerance, and cost efficiency.
• Build and maintain APIs and high-throughput pipelines to support OpenRTB integrations, partner mediation, ad selection workflows, and VAST XML generation for display and video ads.
• Enhance system reliability and observability by driving telemetry instrumentation, monitoring dashboards, and resilient distributed service architecture.
• Investigate and optimize production systems through deep-dive analysis, performance tuning, and scaling strategies to minimize latency and ensure high availability across mission-critical ad serving components.
• Collaborate with cross-discipline teams—including product managers, applied scientists, and partner engineering teams—to translate business goals into scalable technical solutions.
• Champion engineering excellence by driving automated testing, continuous integration/deployment (CI/CD), and maintaining high-quality documentation, design reviews, and coding practices.
• Own live site operations by participating in on-call rotations, leading root cause analysis, and driving continuous improvements in service resilience and health.