The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

We are looking for a Senior AI Platform Engineer to join the Productivity & Collaboration team within Global Technology Operations. Our team delivers the core productivity, collaboration, knowledge, automation, and AI-enabled workplace capabilities that help foundation staff work securely, effectively, and with mission impact. We work across Microsoft 365, Copilot, Copilot Studio, Power Platform, SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, Exchange, Viva, Anthropic Claude, OpenAI ChatGPT, and approved enterprise AI tools to create integrated experiences rather than fragmented point solutions. 

This role will help the foundation scale AI responsibly by turning enterprise AI strategy and governance into secure platform patterns, working solutions, sustainable operations, and measurable business value. The person in this role will partner closely with Technical Program Managers, platform engineers, Enterprise Architecture, Information Security, Legal, Privacy, Records, data teams, business stakeholders, vendors, and implementation partners. 

Your Role

As a Senior AI Platform Engineer supporting Microsoft 365, Copilot, and AI-enabled productivity technologies, you will design, build, integrate, govern, and operate AI-powered experiences that improve how staff find information, automate work, create agents, and collaborate securely. This is a hands-on engineering role with strong architectural judgment, focused on Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Power Platform, Azure AI services, Microsoft Graph, M365 data readiness, and enterprise AI governance controls. 

You will create reusable engineering patterns for agents, copilots, automations, knowledge sources, connectors, workflow orchestration, evaluation, monitoring, and lifecycle management. You will help define when solutions should use Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Power Platform, Azure AI, ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude Enterprise, or another approved platform, and you will ensure those choices align with data protection, security, compliance, cost, and operational requirements. 

At its core, this role bridges AI strategy, platform engineering, and staff experience. You will translate business needs into secure and supportable AI-enabled solutions, bring clarity to emerging platform capabilities, reduce technical and governance debt, and help mature the foundation’s operating model for AI-enabled productivity and collaboration. 

This role requires strong engineering execution, systems thinking, sound judgment, clear communication, and the ability to operate across a complex enterprise environment with evolving AI technology, governance expectations, and stakeholder needs. 

What You’ll Do

AI Solution Engineering and Agent Platform Development. Design, build, test, deploy, and support AI-enabled solutions using Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Power Platform, Azure AI services, Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Graph, approved connectors, APIs, and related enterprise AI technologies. Develop patterns for retrieval-augmented generation, grounding, agent instructions, prompt libraries, workflow automation, human-in-the-loop review, and safe action execution.

M365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, and Agent Governance. Define and operate engineering standards for enterprise, team, and individual agents, including ownership, access, sharing, environment strategy, lifecycle, monitoring, retirement, and support expectations. Partner with AI Program, Enterprise Architecture, Information Security, Enterprise Data, Legal, Privacy, Records, and platform owners to translate enterprise AI policy into platform-level guardrails and repeatable implementation patterns.

Power Platform and Low-Code AI Engineering. Establish technical patterns for Copilot Studio, Power Apps, Power Automate, Dataverse, connectors, solution packaging, environment management, application lifecycle management, deployment pipelines, connection references, and reusable components. Help mature Power Platform governance into a scalable model for agents, apps, flows, and citizen-developer solutions.

M365 Data Readiness for AI. Improve the quality, security, and usefulness of Microsoft 365 data for AI experiences by partnering on SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, and Exchange governance. Support work that strengthens permissions hygiene, reduces oversharing, improves search and discoverability, improves knowledge-source curation, and aligns retention, sensitivity, and information architecture practices with AI usage.

AI Platform Operations, Monitoring, and Cost Management. Build operational practices for AI-enabled platforms, including usage reporting, cost and consumption monitoring, auditability, incident response, service health, platform baselines, risk reviews, and continuous improvement. Help leadership understand adoption, value, cost drivers, control gaps, and platform risks across Copilot, Copilot Studio, Power Platform, Azure AI, and other approved enterprise AI tools.

Architecture, Security, and Responsible AI Controls. Design secure data access and integration patterns using least privilege, scoped connectors, existing user permissions, enterprise identity, audit logging, DLP alignment, and approved architecture standards. Evaluate AI solutions for accuracy, retrieval quality, grounding quality, prompt safety, latency, cost, permissions behavior, and operational supportability.

Cross-Functional Delivery and Technical Leadership. Partner across the IT department and foundation wide, with TPMs, engineers, architects, service owners, vendors, and business stakeholders to move high-value AI scenarios from concept to sustainable production support. Create technical documentation, runbooks, decision records, platform patterns, and executive-ready materials that explain recommendations, tradeoffs, risks, and required decisions clearly.

Continuous Improvement and Emerging Technology Evaluation. Stay current on Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Power Platform, Azure AI, agentic AI, enterprise AI governance, and related industry trends. Evaluate new capabilities pragmatically, recommend where they fit, and help the foundation adopt new AI technologies with the right balance of pace, value, security, and operational discipline.

Your Experience

10+ years of relevant experience in AI engineering, software engineering, cloud engineering, platform engineering, Microsoft 365 engineering, Power Platform engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Hands-on experience building, integrating, or operating enterprise AI solutions using large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, semantic search, AI agents, prompt engineering, workflow orchestration, or AI-enabled automation.

Experience with Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Power Platform, Azure AI services, Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Graph, SharePoint Online, Teams, OneDrive, Entra ID, PowerShell, APIs, or related Microsoft cloud technologies.

Experience designing secure data access patterns for AI-enabled solutions, including permissions inheritance, least privilege, scoped connectors, identity management, auditability, DLP alignment, and information protection controls.

Experience with Power Platform governance and ALM concepts, including environments, connectors, managed solutions, pipelines, Dataverse, service accounts, connection references, and citizen-developer support models.

Experience improving M365 data readiness for AI, including permissions cleanup, content lifecycle, search and discoverability, knowledge-source curation, information architecture, retention, sensitivity labels, or data governance practices.

Experience with AI evaluation and operational practices such as response quality testing, retrieval testing, prompt testing, hallucination reduction, monitoring, observability, feedback loops, latency, and cost optimization.

Strong engineering judgment and documentation skills, including the ability to create reusable patterns, technical standards, architecture decision records, runbooks, and support procedures.

Ability to translate business needs and governance requirements into secure, scalable, supportable technical solutions.

Strong communication skills, including the ability to explain technical concepts, platform constraints, risks, and recommendations to technical and non-technical audiences.

Ability to navigate ambiguity, influence without authority, build trust across diverse stakeholder groups, and drive clarity in a fast-moving AI technology environment.

Experience working across Information Security, Legal, Privacy, Records, Enterprise Architecture, data teams, engineering teams, vendors, and business stakeholders is preferred.

Preferred experience includes Microsoft certifications in Azure, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Security, AI, or Architecture; experience in regulated or complex enterprise environments; and experience with ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude Enterprise, Semantic Kernel, Azure AI Search, or similar agent and orchestration technologies.

First-Year Success Looks Like 

AI engineering operating model is defined and adopted, with clear paths for self-service, Interact consulting, complex engineering builds, production support, and escalation.

Reusable engineering patterns, templates, and reference architectures are in place for Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Power Platform, Azure AI, connectors, grounding, evaluation, and secure agent lifecycle management.

Agent and automation governance is operationalized from intake through retirement, including ownership, review criteria, environment strategy, sharing controls, monitoring, support expectations, and risk-based escalation.

M365 data readiness priorities are sequenced with TPM, engineering, Information Security, Legal, Privacy, Records, Enterprise Data and business partners, with practical improvements underway for permissions hygiene, content quality, discoverability, and oversharing risk.

A small set of high-value AI-enabled productivity scenarios has moved from concept to sustainable production support, with documented value, adoption plan, support model, and clear ownership after launch.

Usage, adoption, cost, risk, and platform-health reporting is available to inform leadership decisions, prioritize demand, and show where AI is creating measurable business value.

Runbooks and escalation paths are documented and exercised for AI-related incidents, unsafe or low-quality outputs, access issues, connector failures, new feature releases, and platform service changes.

The broader Productivity & Collaboration team is stronger because reusable documentation, demos, code patterns, decision records, and knowledge transfer make future AI work less bespoke and more durable.

*Must have unrestricted work authorization in the country where this position is located.

The Foundation does not provide immigration-related sponsorship for this role. This includes direct company sponsorship and any work authorization requiring a written submission or other immigration support from the company (e.g.: H-1B, O-1, L-1, E, OPT, STEM-OPT, CPT, TN, J-1, etc.).

#LI-SC2

The salary range for this role is $157,400 to $236 USD. We recognize high-wage market differences where our offices are located, in Seattle and Washington D.C. The range for this role in these locations is $173,100 to $259,7000 USD. As a mission-driven organization, we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission, and new hires are typically brought into the organization at a salary between the range minimum and the midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidate’s job-related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process.

Hiring Requirements

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

Candidate Accommodations

We’re committed to providing an inclusive and accessible hiring experience for all candidates. If you have a disability or medical condition and need an accommodation at any stage of the application or interview process—such as an ASL interpreter, alternative interview format, or physical accessibility support—we’re happy to help. Please contact HR@gatesfoundation.org with the position number and a brief description of your accommodation needs. Requests will be handled confidentially.

Inclusion Statement

We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We strive for a global and cultural workplace that supports ever greater diversity, equity, and inclusion — of voices, ideas, and approaches — and we support this diversity through all our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.

Senior AI Platform Engineer, Microsoft 365 & Copilot (3 year LTE)

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