Job Information
Apex Systems, Inc. Applications Dev & Test - Software Development Engineer 4 - 3018765 in Redmond, Washington
Job#: 3018765
Job Description:
Software Development Engineer 4
Start Date: 1/26/2026
End Date: 6/30/2026
Duration: 5 months
Extension: Possible (based on budget & performance)
Location: Remote --- must support PST core hours
Pay Rate Range: $60--$65/hr
Openings: 1
Top 3 Must-Have Skills
- Deployment / Release Engineering & Automation --- 4+ years
- - CI/CD pipelines, phased rollouts, automated gates, release promotion logic, safe deployment patterns, automation replacing manual workflows.
- Telemetry, Crash Diagnostics & Observability --- 3+ years
- - Kusto queries, ETW/WPP, reliability dashboards, crash/watson interpretation, turning telemetry into health metrics that gate releases.
- Incident Response & Operational Engineering --- 2+ years
- - ICM workflows, anomaly response, triage, regression mitigation, halting bad flights, cross-team coordination during incidents.
Purpose of the Role
Engineer will design, build, and own a fully automated deployment pipeline for Windows codec packs (notably HEVC) delivered via the Microsoft Store to billions of devices.
Goal: Transform a manual, month-long release process into an automated, data-driven flow capable of safe deployment in under 1 week.
Key Responsibilities
- Build an end-to-end automated deployment pipeline for codec packs.
- Manage phased Store rollouts (10% ? 25% ? 50% ? 100%) with automated promotion/hold logic based on telemetry.
- Define/instrument release health metrics using telemetry, crash data, reliability signals.
- Implement anomaly detection, automated alerts, and auto-generated ICMs.
- Create pre-flight validations, telemetry-based gates, and safe-deployment guardrails.
- Maintain monitoring dashboards, Kusto queries, alert rules, and diagnostic tooling.
- Collaborate closely with codec engineering, Store operations, reliability/SRE, and service teams.
- Improve observability and accelerate root-cause identification.
Ideal BackgroundCore Strengths
- Strong telemetry & diagnostics (ETW/WPP, crash pipelines, reliability metrics).
- Demonstrated automation mindset---turning manual processes into pipelines, scripts, alerting, gating.
- Familiar with incident/ICM workflows and fast mitigation practices.
Nice to Have
- Experience with Store or client component deployments.
- Knowledge of media/codec tech: HEVC, AV1, media pipelines, Windows media stack.
- Proven cross-team collaborator across engineering, SRE, release, and vendor partners.
Qualifications
- Experience shipping large-scale services, CI/CD systems, Store or service deployments, or SRE/reliability engineering.
- Expertise in telemetry tooling: ETW/WPP, Kusto, crash diagnostics, reliability analysis.
- Ability to convert manual processes into automation through pipelines and policy systems.
- Experience with automated gating, alerting systems, and incident workflows (ICM).
- Strong communication & collaboration.
Bonus: codec knowledge, Windows Media Foundation experience, Store flighting.
EEO Employer
Apex Systems is an equal opportunity employer. We do not disc