Microsoft

Principal Applied AI Engineer

Microsoft$150K — $180K *
Information Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field with 6+ years of technical engineering experience or equivalent.
  • 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with production systems.
  • Strong skills in C# and/or Python for creating production-quality services and distributed systems.
  • Experience with applied AI systems like LLMs and agent frameworks.
  • Familiarity with Azure and cloud-native practices (microservices, CI/CD, etc.).
  • Ability to influence technical decisions across teams without direct authority.
  • Master's degree in relevant technical field is a plus.

Responsibilities

  • Architect and implement scalable AI agents and workflows.
  • Write and maintain production-quality code in C# and Python.
  • Translate customer scenarios into technical solutions for deployment.
  • Establish architecture patterns and engineering standards for AI services.
  • Design evaluation frameworks and define quality thresholds for AI systems.
  • Ensure reliability and quality of AI services; lead incident response efforts.
  • Integrate responsible AI principles into system architecture and implementation.
  • Evaluate technical options and make decisions balancing quality and cost.
  • Partner with stakeholders to influence product and platform roadmaps.
  • Use data to drive measurable improvements in automation and customer satisfaction.
  • Provide technical leadership and mentor engineers across teams.

Benefits

  • Opportunities for professional development and mentorship.
  • Work within a dynamic and innovative team environment.
  • Engage in impactful projects that improve customer experiences.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams on strategic initiatives.
Full Job Description
Responsibilities

'• Architect and build production agentic AI systems: Design and implement scalable AI agents and services, including LLM orchestration, multi-agent workflows, RAG pipelines, tool integrations, memory and state management, and human-in-the-loop experiences.
• Lead through hands-on engineering: Write, review, and maintain production-quality C# and Python code. Build critical components, reference implementations, prototypes, and reusable platform capabilities that accelerate delivery across the engineering organization.
• Own end-to-end technical delivery: Translate ambiguous customer support scenarios into clear technical requirements and take solutions from architecture and experimentation through implementation, deployment, operation, and continuous improvement.
• Define technical architecture and engineering standards: Establish architecture patterns, API and data contracts, code quality expectations, evaluation practices, deployment strategies, and observability standards for AI services. Drive technical consistency while allowing teams to evolve their solutions.
• Advance evaluation-driven AI development: Design and implement evaluation frameworks using rubrics, golden datasets, simulation, judge models, and offline and online evaluation. Define quality thresholds and graduation criteria for moving agents from experimentation through shadow mode and into autonomous operation.
• Own production quality and reliability: Ensure AI services meet demanding standards for correctness, availability, latency, scalability, cost, and safety. Diagnose complex production issues, lead technical incident response and root cause analysis, and engineer systemic improvements.
• Design for responsible and secure AI: Embed responsible AI principles, privacy protections, prompt-injection defenses, tool authorization, data boundaries, action controls, auditability, and fail-safe behavior into system architecture and implementation.
• Make consequential technical decisions: Evaluate models, frameworks, platforms, and architectural approaches using evidence from experiments and production telemetry. Balance solution quality with reliability, maintainability, latency, cost, and operational complexity.
• Influence product and platform roadmaps: Partner with product managers, researchers, platform engineers, and Azure service teams to shape technical strategy and platform capabilities. Translate customer support patterns and operational signals into durable engineering investments.
• Drive measurable customer and business impact: Instrument systems and use data to improve automation accuracy, case volume reduction, resolution time, engineering efficiency, and customer satisfaction. Connect architectural investments to measurable outcomes.
• Provide technical leadership across teams: Lead architecture reviews, resolve complex technical disagreements, and align engineers and partner organizations around shared designs. Communicate clearly with engineering teams, senior leaders, and non-technical stakeholders.
• Raise the engineering capability of the organization: Mentor engineers in system design, software engineering, applied AI, and evaluation-driven development. Create reusable guidance and help teams develop the judgment to determine where AI agents should and should not act autonomously.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications
• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field 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
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience designing, building, and operating production software systems.
• Strong proficiency in C# and/or Python, with demonstrated ability to design and implement production-quality services and distributed systems.
• Experience with applied AI systems, including LLM-based applications, prompt engineering, RAG architectures, agent frameworks, or machine learning services.
• Experience with cloud platforms, preferably Azure, and cloud-native engineering practices including microservices, APIs, containers, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and observability.
• Proven ability to influence technical direction and align multiple teams without direct management authority.
• Master's degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related technical field.
• Experience implementing agent security patterns such as prompt-injection defense, identity propagation, least-privilege tool access, data-boundary enforcement, approval gates, and auditable actions.
• Demonstrated ability to move between strategic architecture and detailed implementation, including debugging complex interactions across models, prompts, tools, data, and distributed services.
• Strong business acumen and experience connecting technical investments to measurable customer outcomes such as case volume reduction, resolution time, automation quality, and customer satisfaction.
• Track record of mentoring senior engineers and raising engineering standards across teams without formal people management responsibilities.
• Background in customer support engineering, supportability, diagnostics, or customer experience platforms is a strong plus.

#EngOps #EngOpsACES

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

About Microsoft

Microsoft is an American multinational corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells a range of software products and services. Microsoft’s devices and consumer (D&C) licensing segment licenses the Windows operating system and related software, Microsoft Office for consumers, and the Windows Phone operating system. The company’s computing and gaming hardware segment provides Xbox gaming and entertainment consoles and accessories, second-party and third-party video games, and Xbox Live subscriptions; surface devices and accessories; and Microsoft PC accessories. Its phone hardware segment offers Lumia smartphones and other non-Lumia phones. Its D&C segment provides Windows Store, Xbox Live transactions, and Windows phone store; search advertising; display advertising; Office 365 Home and Office 365 Personal; first-party video games; and other consumer products and services as well as operating retail stores. Microsoft’s commercial licensing segments license server products, including Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Studio, System Center, and related Client Access Licenses (CALs); Windows Embedded; Windows operating system; Microsoft Office for business, including Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, and related CALs; Microsoft Dynamics business solutions; and Skype. Its commercial segment offers enterprise services, including premier support services and Microsoft consulting services; commercial cloud comprising Office 365 Commercial, other Microsoft Office online offerings, Dynamics CRM Online, and Microsoft Azure; and other commercial products and online services. The company markets and distributes its products through original equipment manufacturers, distributors, and resellers, as well as online.

Microsoft Careers

Join Microsoft today and be part of a company that values innovation, leadership, and diversity in its workforce. As a global leader in technology and digital transformation, Microsoft offers unparalleled job opportunities that propel your career to new heights.

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Career growth at Microsoft is about more than climbing the corporate ladder; it's about continuous learning, expanding your skills, and improving your capabilities. With access to various leadership and training programs, you can evolve as a professional and make a significant impact within the company and on the global stage.

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Learn more about Microsoft
Size
181,000 employees
Market Cap
$1,762.4 billion
Industry
Net Income
$51.3 billion
Founded
1975
5 Year Trend
+15.5%
Revenue
$153.2 billion
NASDAQ

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