Principal Software Engineer

Are you interested in being part of an organization of ~$10 billion in revenue and still growing? Are you looking to join a fun and invigorating environment where people openly collaborate and are empowered to innovate? 

Online advertising is one of the fastest-growing industries on the internet, with about $70 billion of the $600 billion global advertising market already online. Search engines, publishers, ad networks, and ad exchanges deliver billions of ads and process massive amounts of data every day. Our team builds the platform behind Bing Ads, helping power AI-driven advertising for customers around the world. 

We are looking for a collaborative and motivated Principal Software Engineer to help shape the future of the Bing Ads auction platform—the core system that powers ad delivery. In this role, you’ll lead technical direction, solve complex engineering challenges, and work across teams to build scalable, reliable solutions. 

As a Principal Software Engineer, you’ll drive projects from concept to delivery, influence technical decisions across multiple teams, and collaborate with engineering, product, design, and applied science partners. You’ll help modernize the advertising platform while improving performance, developer productivity, and AI-powered advertising capabilities. 

This role is a great fit for someone who enjoys solving large-scale distributed systems problems, leading through technical expertise, and building platforms that have a global impact on advertisers and users. 

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.  

AI Experiences employees who live within a 50- mile commute of a designated Microsoft Hub in the U.S. are expected to work from the office at least four days per week. This expectation is subject to local law and may vary by jurisdiction.

Responsibilities

In this role, you will

• Combine technical expertise, cross-team leadership, and business impact to shape the future of the Bing Ads platform. 
• Own critical components of the ads serving stack end-to-end, improving scalability, performance, reliability, maintainability, observability, and engineering efficiency. 
• Lead the evolution of the core auction and pricing engine, ensuring correctness, efficiency, low latency, and solid business outcomes for revenue and ad quality. 
• Drive ambiguous, high-impact technical initiatives from concept to delivery, defining strategy, aligning multiple teams, and leading execution through influence. 
• Partner closely with engineering, product, design, and applied science teams to deliver complex cross-functional features and integrate new AI-powered capabilities into the auction platform. 
• Set architectural direction across teams by leading design reviews, modernizing shared platform capabilities and development frameworks, and reducing system complexity. 
• Advance AI-enabled engineering practices and developer productivity through improved tooling, automation, and platform investments. 
• Mentor engineers, establish high engineering standards, and raise the technical bar across the organization. 
• Ensure the health of a high-scale, low-latency platform serving billions of requests daily by driving operational excellence, incident response, root-cause analysis, capacity planning, and performance optimization. 
• Connect technical decisions to business outcomes, translating long-term strategy into a prioritized technical roadmap that improves customer experience, platform reliability, and business growth. 

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelors 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:

• Masters 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 Bachelors Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of experience owning and operating production services as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI) or on-call owner. 
• Proven technical design, problem-solving, and debugging skills, with experience working on large, complex production systems. 
• Proven ability to lead technical initiatives across teams, influence architectural decisions, and communicate effectively with engineering and cross-functional partners. 
• Demonstrated success driving ambiguous, high-impact projects independently, delivering complex solutions with minimal direction. 
• Proven experience designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems throughout the full software development lifecycle. 
• Experience leading architecture and technical execution across multiple teams, influencing engineering strategy and driving technical alignment. 
• Experience building shared platforms, frameworks, or developer productivity solutions. 
• Experience with online advertising, search, or other high-scale, low-latency distributed systems. 

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.