Principal Software Architect

Microsoft • Redmond, WA

15h • $165,600 - $331,200

About The Position

Microsoft’s Agentic Security Organization is building an Agent Platform to help teams create and operate AI agents across security scenarios securely, reliably, and at scale. The Principal Software Architect will shape the platform’s technical direction and bring key capabilities into production, defining architecture and engineering patterns that make agents easier to build, safer to operate, and more useful to customers. This is a hands-on leadership role involving complex design work, implementation to validate important decisions, and cross-team collaboration to turn evolving AI technology into dependable experiences at Microsoft scale. The role aims to simplify developer and customer experiences while maintaining high standards for security, performance, and operational excellence.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical discipline and 8+ years of technical engineering experience coding in languages including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python, or equivalent experience.
• Ability to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements, including passing the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field and 15+ years of technical engineering experience coding in languages including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python; or a master’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field and 12+ years of such experience; or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of experience architecting and delivering large-scale distributed systems or cloud platforms, with judgment across security, reliability, scalability, performance, and operations.
• 5+ years of experience designing developer-facing platforms, APIs, SDKs, or extensible abstractions that simplify infrastructure complexity and help other teams build, deploy, and operate services effectively.
• 3+ years of experience building AI-powered applications or platforms, with an understanding of agent orchestration, tool integration, evaluation, and the security and reliability challenges of production AI systems.
• Demonstrated ability to influence engineering direction across teams, mentor engineers, and connect technical decisions to developer productivity and intuitive, trustworthy customer experiences.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the Agent Platform’s technical vision, including core capabilities, interfaces, extensibility model, and end-to-end architecture.
• Architect and help deliver systems that enable AI agents to operate securely and reliably at scale, including isolation, identity and access controls, observability, resiliency, and operational safeguards.
• Establish reusable patterns for production-grade agents, including orchestration, tool integration, context and state management, evaluation, monitoring, and lifecycle management.
• Simplify the developer experience by abstracting infrastructure complexity and making it easier for teams to build, onboard, test, deploy, and operate agents consistently.
• Shape intuitive, responsive, and trustworthy customer experiences by connecting platform decisions to how people use agent-powered security workflows.
• Partner with engineering, product, security, research, and platform teams to translate emerging AI capabilities and security requirements into practical solutions.
• Lead through technical judgment and influence across teams; identify gaps, guide long-term investments, validate key designs through prototypes and code, and mentor engineers.
• Lead complex designs from concept through production while remaining hands-on with critical technical decisions.

Benefits

• Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation; the posting directs applicants to Microsoft’s careers site for additional benefits and pay information.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal