Principal Software Engineering Manager - CTJ - Poly

Microsofts Specialized Cloud team is seeking a Principal Engineering Manager to lead engineering teams building and securing cloud-scale services for some of the worlds most sensitive and mission-critical environments. This leader will set technical direction, grow a high-performing engineering team, and deliver secure, compliant, and highly reliable platform capabilities that support internal security systems and customer-facing cloud offerings.

In this role, you will operate at the intersection of engineering leadership, distributed systems, security, compliance, and live-site operations. You will be accountable for both product outcomes and organizational health: translating strategic priorities into execution plans, coaching managers and senior engineers, raising the engineering bar, and ensuring services meet the standards required for sovereign, regulated, and mission-critical cloud environments.

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

• Lead, coach, and grow a team of engineers, creating clarity, accountability, and an inclusive culture of high performance.
• Own end-to-end delivery of complex platform initiatives, including architecture, execution, quality, release readiness, and operational adoption.
• Establish and continuously improve engineering standards for secure development, code quality, testing, automation, telemetry, incident response, and service resilience.
• Drive operational excellence through live-site accountability, effective on-call practices, incident reviews, risk reduction, and measurable reliability improvements.
• Use data, customer feedback, security signals, and operational metrics to prioritize investments and improve service performance, security posture, and engineering efficiency.
• Manage cross-team dependencies, communicate risks and tradeoffs clearly, and influence senior stakeholders across organizational boundaries.
• Develop senior technical talent by mentoring engineers, supporting career growth, and building succession strength within the organization.

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.

Other Requirements:

Security Clearance Requirements: Candidates must be able 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:

• The successful candidate must have an active U.S. Government Top Secret Clearance with access 
  to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) based on a Single Scope Background Investigation 
  (SSBI) with Polygraph. Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening 
  requirements are required pre-offer and post-hire for this role. Failure to maintain or obtain the 
  appropriate U.S. Government clearance and/or customer screening requirements may result in 
  employment action up to and including termination.
• Clearance Verification: This position requires successful verification of the stated security 
  clearance to meet federal government customer requirements. You will be asked to provide 
  clearance verification information prior to an offer of employment.
• Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud 
  background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.
• Citizenship & Citizenship Verification: This position requires verification of U.S. citizenship due 
  to citizenship-based legal restrictions. Specifically, this position supports United States federal, 
  state, and/or local United States government agency customer and is subject to certain 
  citizenship-based restrictions where required or permitted by applicable law. To meet this legal 
  requirement, citizenship will be verified via a valid passport, or other approved documents, or 
  verified US government Clearance

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.

• 4+ years people management experience.

• Experience with sovereign cloud, government cloud, regulated industry, or security-sensitive cloud environments.
• Background in security engineering, compliance-driven engineering, identity, platform services, infrastructure, or cloud management systems.
• Experience leading managers, staff-level engineers, or senior technical leads in a matrixed organization.
• Ability to balance long-term platform strategy with urgent operational, customer, and compliance needs.
• Track record of improving engineering systems, delivery predictability, service health, and customer trust at organizational scale.

Software Engineering M5 - 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.