Before joining Microsoft in 1991, Rashid had been the developer of the Mach kernel during his tenure as a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University.

These concepts advanced the state of operating systems and led to their practical and widespread adoption.

His team has collaborated with the world's most prominent researchers in academia, industry and government to advance the state of computing and to help secure the future of Microsoft's products.

[1] Rashid was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2003 for advances in operating systems and leadership in industrial research.

[6][7] While a faculty member at CMU, he also performed research and published numerous papers and articles on topics such as networking, operating systems, artificial intelligence, and programming languages for distributed computing applications.