Principal Software Engineer (Architect)

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Security represents the most critical priorities for our customers in a world awash in digital threats, regulatory scrutiny, and estate complexity. Microsoft Security aspires to make the world a safer place for all with agentic security, securing AI, secure data and securing customers. We want to reshape security and empower every user, customer, and developer with a security cloud that protects them with end to end, simplified solutions. The Microsoft Security organization accelerates Microsoft’s mission and bold ambitions to ensure that our company and industry is securing digital technology platforms, devices, and clouds in our customers’ heterogeneous environments, as well as ensuring the security of our own internal estate. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day with bias for action and e2e outcomes. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world. We are the User Authentication team within Identity and Network Access, building and operating the authentication platform for all Microsoft’s cloud: Azure, Microsoft 365, Xbox, or Dynamics. Our platform covers the full spectrum of authentication scenarios (consumer, enterprise, B2B, CIAM, user like agents, digital workers). These massive services provide sign-in user experience for billions of users accessing Microsoft Cloud's services. We pride ourselves on our technical excellence, customer obsession and broad experience that comes with running very large-scale services and experiences. As we evolve towards a unified, AI-first authentication platform, we are rethinking how identity systems are designed, operated, and secured in an agent-driven world. This includes enabling secure interactions for not just users, but also agents and digital workers, while maintaining industry-leading reliability, performance, and trust. We are hiring an Engineering Leader to architect and drive the next generation of authentication platform system —balancing standardization with flexibility, and enabling secure velocity at scale. This role will partner across IDNA, Microsoft Security, and broader engineering teams to establish durable, secure-by-default foundations and modernize how we build and operate authentication services with agentic workflows. We encourage experimentation and rapid prototyping—innovation days and hackathons are part of our team’s culture. We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer - Architect to enable Secure Velocity systems as well as introduce durable constructs for shipping authentication capabilities. We are looking for a leader who can transform how we build and operate auth services, capabilities in Agentic era. You will champion the adoption of cutting-edge AI tools in our engineering and in our products, while working with diverse, high-performing teams who share a passion for customer-centric, impactful engineering. 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. 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.

Requirements

Bachelor's 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 equivalent experience.
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 background and Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Nice To Haves

12+ years of Software Engineering leadership experience
Proven ability to influence significant system changes
Track record of leading distributed teams is a plus to operationalize initiatives
Experience in running large scale cloud services
Sufficient understanding of security and privacy in authentication/identity solutions
Experience integrating or leveraging AI in customer-facing products , core platforms or engineering processes is a plus
Proven ability to drive engineering process improvements and measurable success/impact

Responsibilities

Define and operationalize secure-by-default and resilient-by-default engineering models for 100+ user auth team.
Enable platform capabilities that accelerate consistent, compliant shipping.
Influence architectural direction across multiple teams and services.
Coach and influence Principal Engineers and Tech Leads across the org and division.
Drive transformative workflow adoption of AI both in engineering systems and product capabilities.
Lead critical design decisions on system decomposition, multi-tenant architecture, and central resiliency models.