Principal Software Engineer (Architect)

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

About The Position

Microsoft Security aspires to make the world a safer place for all. 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. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world. The Identity and Access Management team within the Identity division is looking for a Principal Software Engineer - Architect to solve large scale problems and deliver the next wave of innovation in Entra ID. Our work enables customers to easily manage access to their cloud resources, power collaboration and ease management scenarios. We deliver internet scale services and event processing pipelines in Microsoft Graph. Security, availability, performance, and scale are essential for us. 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.
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

Master's 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 Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 15+ 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 building highly available large-scale services from conception to deployment.
Prioritizes partner and customer needs and consistently delivers high-quality experiences, with demonstrated success in rapidly executing go-to-market solutions.
Proven experience with improving operational excellence.
Experience with Identity Access Management or other Security products.
Experience with cloud technologies (Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, etc.).

Responsibilities

Translate user needs into architecture using metrics, telemetry, and continuous feedback loops.
Own system architecture design, ensuring scalability, compliance, and cross-team alignment.
Lead high-quality coding practices, design reviews, and reusable, maintainable software development.
Drive implementation, experimentation, and release planning across multiple product lines.
Ensure reliability, supportability, and incident response through telemetry, playbooks, and root cause analysis.
Champion engineering excellence, automation, and compliance across security, privacy, and accessibility standards.
Lead the shift to an AI-first engineering model, embedding AI across the SDLC and scaling intelligent automation.