Software Engineer II - CoreAI

Overview

Imagine making it faster and easier for tens of thousands of Microsoft engineers to build great products - thats what youll do on the Engineering Thrive Insights team. Youll join the team behind the data platform, metrics, and developer-facing tools that measure and improve the engineering experience at Microsoft, spanning developer satisfaction, change velocity, build quality, and AI tool impact. Youll help shape data products like ThriveIQ, our new service that puts engineering metrics at developers' fingertips through natural language interfaces, and Data Flywheel, our agentic coding tool improvement loop.

In this role, youll design and operate the data-driven Python services that power how Microsoft engineers understand their own productivity - work that directly influences how the company ships software. Youll grow deep expertise in data engineering and dimensional modeling, agentic AI and MCP server development, privacy-by-design metric APIs, and developer productivity frameworks like DORA and SPACE, while using AI coding assistants in your daily workflow to build the next generation of AI-powered developer tools at Microsoft scale.

Responsibilities

• Works with appropriate internal stakeholders (e.g., product manager, privacy/security subject matter expert, technical lead) to understand and determine customer/user requirements for a set of features. Incorporates customer insights into future designs or solution fixes with minimal supervision. Incorporates unwritten requirements, such as appropriate continuous feedback loops that measure actionable, quantitative (e.g., customer value, usage patterns, solution performance) and qualitative (e.g., accessibility, globalization) indicators of value. Understands, and begins providing feedback on, and advocating for the security and privacy needs of the customer who will be using the set of features.

• Creates and implements code for a product, service, or feature, reusing code as applicable with minimal supervision. Writes and learns to create code that is extensible and maintainable. Considers diagnosability, reliability, and maintainability with few defects, and understands when the code is ready to be shared and delivered. Applies coding patterns and best practices to write code (e.g., leveraging state-of-the-art generative artificial intelligence [GenAI], approaches to source code organization, naming conventions). Escalates identified blockers or unknowns during the development process, communicates how they will impact timelines, and contributes to identifying strategies and/or opportunities to address them with minimal supervision.

• Builds knowledge, shares new ideas, and shares pinpoints of engineering tool gaps to improve software developer tools to support easier, faster, and more effective software engineering for complex product features. Identifies whether open source or internal code is available to address coding needs for a set of product features, and reuses it in a responsible manner where applicable. Develops higher-level awareness of tools outside current areas of expertise. Helps to identify and/or create tools that are useful for building the product, determining if methods are still applicable for the current solution.

• Uses appropriate artificial intelligence (AI) tools and practices across the software development lifecycle (SDLC) in a disciplined manner. Takes responsibility for the content of their AI-generated changes to artifacts, reviewing all changes and applying appropriate tooling and processes with minimal guidance.

• Acts as a designated responsible individual (DRI), working on-call to monitor a system/product feature/service for degradation, downtime, or interruptions. Alerts stakeholders as to the status and gains approval to restore system/product/service for simple problems. Responds within service level agreement (SLA) timeframe. Escalates issues to appropriate owners.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelors Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 2+ 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:

• 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

Preferred Qualifications:

• Masters Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 3+ 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 5+ 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 dimensional modeling and analytics engineering (e.g., star schemas, medallion architecture, semantic layers).
• Experience with analytical query languages like SQL, KQL (Kusto Query Language) and Azure Data Explorer, or similar analytical query languages.
• Experience developing applications on Spark-based big data platform technologies such as Databricks.
• Experience building REST APIs or MCP servers with web application frameworks.
• Experience building or integrating with LLM-powered tools, AI agents, or MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers.
• Experience with DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, and production monitoring/observability.
• Quantitative aptitude and ability to reason about metric definitions, data quality, and statistical validity.
• Familiarity with developer productivity metrics and frameworks (e.g., DORA, SPACE, or similar).
• Experience collaborating with data & applied scientists
• Demonstrated effective use of AI coding assistants in daily development workflow

Software Engineering IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $102,100 - $202,200 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 $133,800 - $219,200 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.