Principal Software Engineer

Overview

The Microsoft Substrate Data Plane team powers the foundational services that enable Microsoft 365 experiences at planetary scale. Our platform processes and serves billions of signals, messages, documents, and interactions across Exchange, Teams, Copilot, and emerging AI-powered experiences. We build highly available, low-latency, massively distributed services that form the backbone of Microsofts productivity cloud.

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to help shape the next generation of intelligent data services and agent-enabled platforms. In this role, you will lead the architecture, development, and operation of large-scale distributed systems that support Copilot, AI agents, search, retrieval, indexing, and data processing workloads across Microsoft 365.

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.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate large-scale, highly available cloud services that power Microsoft 365 experiences for billions of requests and millions of users worldwide.

• Drive architecture, development, and delivery of distributed systems focused on scalability, reliability, performance, security, and operational excellence.

• Develop platform capabilities that enable AI-powered experiences, including agent orchestration, tool execution, data access, grounding, and workflow automation.

• Partner with product teams, service owners, and platform engineers to deliver intelligent, end-to-end experiences across Microsoft 365.

• Leverage telemetry, automation, and AI-assisted diagnostics to improve service health, accelerate incident mitigation, and enhance engineering productivity.

• Lead complex technical initiatives across teams, influence long-term platform strategy, and drive engineering best practices.

• Mentor engineers and foster a culture of innovation, ownership, and continuous improvement.

Embody our culture and values

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.

• Experience with modern AI-driven software development practices, tools, and feedback loops, leveraging AI to accelerate engineering velocity, enhance developer productivity, and improve software quality.

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.

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.