Principal Software Engineer

Overview

Microsoft is a company where passionate innovators come to collaborate, envision what can be and take their careers further. This is a world of more possibilities, more innovation, more openness, and the sky is the limit thinking in a cloud-enabled world.

Microsoft's Azure Data engineering team is leading the transformation of analytics in the world of data with products like databases, data integration, big data analytics, messaging & real-time analytics, and business intelligence. The products our portfolio include Microsoft Fabric, Azure SQL DB, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure PostgreSQL, Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Service Bus, Azure Event Grid, and Power BI. Our mission is to build the data platform for the age of AI, powering a new class of data-first applications and driving a data culture.

Within Microsoft Fabric, the Business Intelligence team powers enterprise reporting and visualization through Power BI. As a core workload of Fabric, Power BI serves as the primary interface for users to explore data, generate insights, and make decisions. The team continues to evolve BI from reporting to a more integrated, insight-driven experience that connects seamlessly with the rest of the Fabric platform.

The Power BI Distribution & Growth team drives Power BI adoption for millions of users by bringing analytics into the flow of work across Microsoft 365 experiences such as Teams, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. We build large-scale distributed systems, cloud services, and AI-powered experiences that accelerate activation, engagement, retention, and enterprise-wide adoption. As a Principal Engineer, you will provide technical leadership across highly scalable, secure, and reliable services, influencing architecture and strategy across multiple engineering teams while solving some of the most challenging problems in growth, distribution, personalization, and data-driven user experiences at Microsoft scale.

We do not just value differences or different perspectives. We seek them out and invite them in so we can tap into the collective power of everyone in the company. As a result, our customers are better served.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical strategy, architecture, and execution of Power BI Growth & Distribution investments, driving experiences that expand adoption, increase engagement, and bring Power BI into customers daily workflows.
• Design and evolve secure, reliable, and highly scalable distributed systems that power growth experiences across Power BI and Microsoft 365 surfaces, serving millions of users worldwide.
• Partner closely with engineering, product management, design, data science, and partner teams across Microsoft to deliver end-to-end solutions that connect customer needs with measurable business outcomes.
• Use telemetry, experimentation, and data-informed decision making to identify growth opportunities, evaluate investments, and improve user activation, retention, and engagement.
• Drive technical excellence across the organization through architecture reviews, engineering best practices, operational rigor, and mentorship of engineers and technical leads.
• Influence the long-term platform strategy for personalized and collaborative analytics experiences, balancing customer value, scalability, security, and maintainability.
• Lead complex cross-team initiatives, aligning stakeholders and technical contributors to deliver impactful solutions that advance Power BIs vision as the analytics layer integrated throughout everyday work.

Embody our culture and values

Qualifications

Required/Minimum 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.

Job Requirements: Other & Additional

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/Additional 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.

• Proven experience architecting hyperscale distributed systems, data platforms, or cloud services.

• Deep expertise in storage systems, large-scale computation frameworks, and data lifecycle management.

• Solid understanding of privacy, security, compliance, and governance requirements in global cloud and data environments.

• Demonstrated ability to drive architectural alignment across large, complex organizations.

• Exceptional communication and executive influence skills, with a track record of driving strategic technical decisions.

• Experience establishing platform standards and technical direction across multiple products or business units.

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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.