Microsoft

Principal Software Engineering Manager

Microsoft$160K — $190K *
Information Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's Degree AND 6+ years experience in low-code application development, data analysis, or product development.
  • Master's degree in Computer Science, AI, or related field preferred.
  • Experience with multi-agent orchestration systems or agentic AI services in production.
  • Proficient with AI evaluation frameworks and metrics.
  • Experience with Azure AI Foundry or similar enterprise platforms.
  • Strong business acumen to link engineering efforts with customer outcomes and KPIs.
  • 8+ years in software engineering or applied AI roles, with 3+ years in technical team leadership.

Responsibilities

  • Build and lead a team of Applied AI Engineers, fostering a supportive and inclusive culture.
  • Drive the lifecycle of production AI agents, from specification to deployment.
  • Set technical direction and engineering standards for code quality and deployment.
  • Ensure the reliability and performance of deployed AI agents, driving continuous improvement.
  • Establish evaluation frameworks to validate agent functionality and safety.
  • Collaborate with product and engineering teams to influence AI platform direction.
  • Own KPIs to measure impacts on business outcomes such as customer satisfaction and automation accuracy.
  • Integrate responsible AI practices and compliance into agent systems.
  • Mentor engineers on AI engineering best practices and career development.

Benefits

  • Inclusive and high-trust company culture.
  • Opportunity to lead and develop a high-performing AI engineering team.
  • Access to cutting-edge technology and platforms like Azure AI.
  • Focus on professional growth with mentorship and career path development.
  • Engage in work that drives measurable business impact and customer satisfaction.
Full Job Description
Responsibilities
• Build and lead the AI engineering pod - Hire, coach, and develop a team of Applied AI Engineers; foster an inclusive, high-trust culture where engineers ship production AI services with ownership and velocity.
• Own engineering execution for agentic AI services - Drive the end-to-end lifecycle of production AI agents from spec to deployment, including LLM orchestration, multi-agent workflows, RAG pipelines, and evaluation systems.
• Set technical direction and engineering standards - Define architecture patterns, code quality bar, evaluation frameworks, deployment practices, and observability standards for the AI engineering pod. Ensure production-quality C# and Python with TDD, CI/CD, staged rollouts, and full observability.
• Own production health and reliability - Ensure deployed AI agents meet quality, performance, and safety standards. Drive incident response, root cause analysis, and continuous improvement for agent systems in production.
• Build and maintain evaluation systems - Establish evaluation frameworks including rubrics, golden datasets, and judge agents to validate agent correctness and safety before and after production deployment. Ensure agents graduate through shadow mode to autonomous operation with eval gates at each stage.
• Influence product and platform roadmaps - Partner with product, platform engineering, and Azure service teams to shape the agentic AI platform direction. Translate customer support patterns and demand signals into engineering priorities.
• Drive measurable business impact - Own KPIs including case volume reduction, automation accuracy, resolution time improvement, and customer satisfaction impact. Use data-driven insights to set OKRs and demonstrate engineering ROI.
• Ensure responsible AI and compliance - Partner with AI Governance to embed responsible AI practices, PII protection, action boundaries, and audit trails into all agent systems architecturally.
• Develop engineering talent - Mentor engineers on applied AI engineering craft, including agentic system design, evaluation-driven development, and the judgment to know where agents should and should not act autonomously. Build career growth paths across AI engineering competencies.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications

  • Bachelor's Degree AND 6+ years experience in low-code application development, engineering product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development OR equivalent experience?


Preferred Qualifications
• Master's degree in Computer Science, AI, or related field.
• Experience building and shipping multi-agent orchestration systems or agentic AI services in production.
• Experience with AI evaluation frameworks (rubrics, golden datasets, judge agents, offline/online eval).
• Experience with Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI, or similar enterprise AI platforms.
• Familiarity with agent security patterns (prompt injection defense, tool access controls, data boundary enforcement).
• Experience leading co-development or cross-org engineering delivery with multiple partner teams.
• Strong business acumen with ability to tie engineering investments to measurable customer and business outcomes (volume reduction, resolution time, CSAT).
• Experience influencing product engineering roadmaps and driving cross-functional collaboration at scale.
• Background in customer support engineering, supportability, or customer experience platforms is a strong plus.
• 8+ years in software engineering or applied AI roles, with 3+ years in people management leading technical engineering teams.

#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.

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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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