Senior Accessibility Engineer

Full Job Description
We are looking for a Senior Accessibility Engineer with a real passion and experience in accessibility and assistive technology to help drive accessibility across the products and services lines in the Cloud + AI division.

We are seeking candidates with real passion for accessibility, usability and inclusive design who have demonstrable and extensive experience designing accessible software and supporting engineering teams in understanding and fixing accessibility issues.

Accessibility is a key part of Microsoft’s mission to empower people and organizations to achieve more. You will join a team directly aligned to Microsoft’s mission statement to build applications and solutions that provide a great experience for all our customers, including people with disabilities. As a customer advocate and accessibility champion you will influence product directions, technical roadmaps and engineering processes across the whole division. More importantly, you will be at the forefront of a company-wide mission to ensure accessibility and usability are built into our products and deeply rooted in our design and engineering culture.

To be successful in this role you will need communication skills, organizational capabilities, understanding of product cycles and engineering processes, and experience in accessibility APIs. As a Senior Accessibility SME for Cloud + AI you will be supporting an extensive number of engineering teams across the division and help them understand, address and ultimately prevent accessibility issues. You will create best practices, methodologies, code samples and documentation to make accessibility easier and more transparent for engineers. You will analyze backlogs and understand root causes for accessibility issues. You will also need to be a detail-oriented, data-driven and effective communicator, negotiator, coordinator and influencer who is capable of building trustful relationships to effectively collaborate and propel multiple groups and tasks to completion.

This is remote friendly position within the US
Responsibilities
Your responsibilities will include:

Connect with products and services teams across the Cloud + AI division to support their efforts on accessibility.
Understand and address accessibility issues across the organization, and support engineering teams in their efforts to address current bugs and prevent new ones.
Help teams to shift-left accessibility into the design process through solid understanding of design patterns and the ability to provide guidance that leads to productive experiences for everyone.
Educate teams on new standards and evolve best practices and knowledge of different disability segments through customer engagements and usability studies.
Contribute to code both inside and outside the division, with a focus on open source projects being used in our projects, to address and remediate accessibility issues.
Raise awareness about accessibility across the division through training and speaker opportunities, building knowledge repositories, and creation and fostering of internal communities and champions that can help teams achieve their accessibility goals.
Work closely with other accessibility, design and usability specialists within Microsoft.

Qualifications
Basic Qualifications:

Bachelor's degree or equivalent work experience.
3+ years of experience in software development or technical program management.
3+ years of experience in assistive technologies and screen readers.
3+ years of experience with accessibility standards for all platforms (web, mobile, desktop) and how they apply to products and services.
1+ years of experience with digital accessibility and/or inclusive design.
3+ years of experience working across teams and successfully communicating with engineering and design teams on key initiatives.

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience with accessibility APIs in Windows desktop development/mobile experience (Android and iOS).
Experience with front end UI/UX development.
Experience with accessibility APIs in web development.
UX Research experience
Passion for technology, accessibility and overall quality of Microsoft’s products and services.
Empathy for customers and partners, and for resolving the difficulties they face while using our products.
Experience working and partnering directly with communities of consumers with disabilities and driving change into products and services.
Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to work well with diverse project teams and across functional areas.
Capability to develop and execute against a long-term vision of success, while ensuring successful completion of short-term operational objectives.

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.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.