Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft

Redmond, Washington, United States -

Full Time

Start Date

Immediate

Expiry Date

20 Mar, 26

Salary

274800.0

Posted On

20 Dec, 25

Experience

10 year(s) or above

Remote Job

Yes

Telecommute

Yes

Sponsor Visa

Skills

Distributed Systems, Cloud Technology, MLOps, AI Automation, Microservices, Containers, Load-Balancing, Caching, Event-Driven Architectures, Intelligent Automation, Platform Engineering, Governance, Reliability, Safety, Collaboration, Mentorship

Industry

Software Development

Description

Overview Are you a customer-obsessed, AI-curious problem-solver who thrives in an inclusive, collaborative global team? Join Engineering Operations (EngOps) – the organization driving operational excellence across the Microsoft Cloud to strengthen quality, reliability, security, and customer trust. As part of EngOps, you’ll design solutions that prevent issues before they happen, embed AI-powered automation, and turn signals into actions that deliver measurable customer impact. Our culture of empowerment, inclusion, and growth mindset defines how we work. Azure Reliability is driving transformation to AI-powered operations by building scalable ML infrastructure that enables autonomous, reliable, and secure cloud systems. We are looking for candidates that can combine deep technical expertise in MLOps with a proven ability to deliver measurable business impact through continuous learning, policy-driven governance, and responsible AI practices. Success in this role means advancing operational autonomy, quality, and security, while fostering collaboration and accountability across teams. Every day, customers stake their business and reputation on our cloud. You can help #EngOps keep them secure, resilient, and ready. This role will require a minimum of three days in office. Responsibilities Partner across multiple product groups to apply subject-matter expertise in distributed systems design practices, interactions between cloud technology layers and components, basic dependencies at scale, and the code that defines infrastructures. Lead by example and mentors' others to produce extensible and maintainable code used across products. Develop and evangelize insights, best practices, and standards that can be applied to improve system, platform, and/or product development and operations across the business. Drive continuous improvements in the architecture, code, features, operations and comprehensive use scenarios of products by leveraging end-to-end technical expertise. Make improvements to the product fundamentals and architecture, share knowledge and code, always looking for ways to make what we build useful to multiple teams and products. Demonstrates end-to-end expertise in distributed systems design, interactions between cloud technology layers. Provide technical leadership in test maturity reviews, static analysis reviews, meetings, on-call rotations, and incident responses throughout product development and operations cycles. Provides deep business and technical expertise as required to resolve major incidents. Qualifications Required Qualifications: Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or related technical discipline AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience. Preferred Qualifications: Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 10+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python. OR equivalent experience.Experience working with large-scale distributed systems (e.g., cloud computing providers, SaaS services, etc., ideally with millions or billions of users) or similarly complex environments. Awareness of, and ability to reason about, modern distributed software design patterns and cloud systems architecture, including microservices, containers, load-balancing, queuing, caching. Experience in building, shipping and operating reliable solutions. Hands-on experience building production-grade AI/ML or LLM-powered systems, including event-driven architectures, agent-based workflows, or intelligent automation embedded into developer workflows (IDE, PRs, CI/CD). Demonstrated experience designing and operating large-scale distributed platforms where reliability, safety, and governance are first-class concerns. Strong background in platform engineering with a focus on internal developer platforms, shared services, and ecosystems used by many teams. Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $139,900 - $274,800 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay Software Engineering IC6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $163,000 - $296,400 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $220,800 - $331,200 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled. Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.

Responsibilities

The Principal Software Engineer will partner across multiple product groups to apply expertise in distributed systems and lead the development of extensible and maintainable code. They will drive continuous improvements in architecture and operations while providing technical leadership throughout product development cycles.