Microsoft

Principal Software Engineer

Microsoft$142K — $274K *
Information Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's Degree in relevant field and 6+ years of hands-on coding experience with languages such as C#, C++, or Java.
  • Experience in designing and operating hyperscale cloud platforms or distributed systems for scalability and reliability.
  • Proven ability to implement AI-assisted software engineering practices for enhanced productivity and quality.
  • Demonstrated capacity to innovate and drive the design of AI workload support services.
  • Track record of ensuring high availability and reliability of cloud services under stringent requirements.

Responsibilities

  • Lead the design and evolution of Azure Storage capabilities for AI and cloud services.
  • Drive innovation in distributed systems and intelligent automation to boost platform scale.
  • Leverage AI tools to enhance development speed and code quality.
  • Define AI's role in transforming software engineering to improve deployment and operational workflows.
  • Influence Azure Storage’s architecture and roadmap for AI-based workloads.
  • Oversee critical service components ensuring health, reliability, and performance.

Benefits

  • Comprehensive health and wellness programs.
  • Generous paid time off and holiday policies.
  • Opportunities for professional development and continuous learning.
  • Support for flexible work arrangements.
Full Job Description
Responsibilities
  • Lead the design and evolution of Azure Storage capabilities that power the next generation of AI platforms, autonomous AI agents, and hyperscale cloud services. Architect and deliver scalable control plane and management plane services that enable AI-scale workloads to provision, manage, and access storage resources with industry-leading performance, reliability, and efficiency
  • Drive innovations in distributed systems, intelligent automation, and resource orchestration to eliminate bottlenecks and unlock the next order of magnitude of platform scale. Partner with engineers, architects, product managers, and AI platform teams across Microsoft to define technical strategy and deliver foundational capabilities that accelerate AI innovation
  • Leverage cutting-edge AI engineering tools, agentic workflows, and code-generation technologies to accelerate development velocity, improve code quality, and enhance engineering productivity across the organization. Explore and implement AI-assisted software development practices, including automated code generation, test creation, debugging, design validation, and operational troubleshooting at cloud scale
  • Help define how AI transforms software engineering at hyperscale, pioneering new approaches that combine human expertise with intelligent agents to build and operate the next generation of cloud infrastructure. Partner with AI platform teams to identify opportunities where intelligent agents can automate engineering, deployment, reliability, and operational workflows across Azure Storage
  • Influence the long-term architecture and technical roadmap for Azure Storage, helping shape the storage foundation behind training, inference, and agentic AI workloads. Leverage deep expertise in cloud infrastructure and distributed systems to solve complex challenges in scalability, resiliency, availability, and operational excellence at global scale
  • Serve as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI) for critical service components, driving end-to-end ownership of system health, reliability, performance, and incident response


Qualifications

Required Qualifications:
  • Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C#, C++, Java, or other languages
    • OR equivalent experience

Other Requirements:
  • Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings:
    • Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter

Preferred Qualifications:
  • Master's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C#, C++, Java, or other languages
    • OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C#, C++, Java, or other languages
    • OR equivalent experience
  • Experience with:
    • 7+ years designing and operating hyperscale cloud platforms, storage services, or distributed systems with a focus on scalability, reliability, and performance
    • Building distributed storage systems, databases, or infrastructure services at scale
    • Designing platforms or services that power AI training, inference, retrieval, reasoning, or agent orchestration workloads
    • Applying AI-powered engineering practices, including code-generation tools, agentic workflows, AI-assisted development, automated testing, debugging, and operational troubleshooting
    • Building platforms or infrastructure that support AI workloads, large-scale inference systems, autonomous agents, or data-intensive applications
    • Championing AI-first engineering practices and influencing engineering transformation across teams or organizations
  • Proven track record of operating highly available cloud services with stringent reliability requirements
  • Expertise in AI-enabled software engineering, including agentic development workflows, LLM-powered coding assistants, automated code generation, and intelligent operational tooling
  • Proven technical leadership driving architecture, strategy, and execution for large-scale cloud services and distributed systems.
  • Passion for leveraging AI to transform software engineering productivity, quality, and operational excellence at scale

#azurecorejobs

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $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

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.

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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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