Principal Software Engineer

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

15h

About The Position

The Copilot Security Engineering team builds the security, evaluation, and defense infrastructure that protects Microsoft’s agentic and autonomous AI systems. We design and operate adversarial testing frameworks, telemetry pipelines, reproducibility systems, and engineering mitigations that ensure Copilot experiences remain safe, resilient, and aligned with Microsoft’s Responsible AI principles. As an Principal Software Engineer, you will lead a team responsible for designing and delivering high‑quality services and tooling that improve the safety, reliability, and observability of AI‑powered systems. You will shape technical strategy, drive execution, grow engineering talent, and collaborate across security, applied science, platform, and product organizations to reduce real‑world risk in next‑generation AI. This role has significant organizational impact: you will guide the engineering team that builds the systems ensuring Microsoft can securely deploy and continuously validate agentic and autonomous AI. Your work will directly influence Microsoft’s security posture, accelerate risk mitigation, and underpin customer trust in the AI experiences that power the company’s future. 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 6+ 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 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 8+ 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 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 building or operating cloud services, security systems, evaluation frameworks, or platform components.
Familiarity with adversarial testing, AI/ML evaluations, safety scorecards, reproducibility frameworks, or secure‑by‑design engineering.
Understanding of threat‑driven engineering, telemetry pipelines, and reliability/observability systems.
Ability to influence cross‑organizational partners and drive alignment across PM, TPM, security, and applied science stakeholders.
Solid communication skills, with the ability to convey technical strategy to executives and engineering audiences.
Passion for advancing secure, responsible, and trustworthy AI.
Experience leading engineering teams delivering production services, platforms, or large‑scale systems.
Proven ability to hire, develop, and mentor engineers while sustaining a healthy, high‑performance team environment.
Solid background in distributed systems, cloud services, or large‑scale production infrastructure.
Excellent technical judgment, with an ability to drive clarity and results in ambiguous and fast‑changing problem spaces.

Responsibilities

Lead, mentor, and grow a high‑performing engineering team focused on secure‑by‑design development, adversarial evaluation, and security‑critical platform components.
Attract and hire diverse engineering talent across multiple levels.
Foster a culture of clarity, inclusion, technical excellence, and accountable execution.
Support team health, psychological safety, and strong career development practices.
Set engineering direction for services and tooling supporting adversarial testing, model evaluation, risk measurement, and secure deployment workflows.
Oversee the design and implementation of distributed systems that deliver security‑focused improvements and mitigations, including telemetry, reproducibility, CI/CD safety gates, governance, and automated validations.
Ensure that security mitigations and security‑driven architectural changes meet high bars for availability, reliability, security, performance, and scalability, providing durable protection across complex AI systems.
Champion best practices in threat modeling, observability, automation, and sustainable engineering.
Partner with security researchers, red teams, applied scientists, Responsible AI, platform engineering, and product teams to translate risks into actionable engineering plans and hardening strategies.
Work closely with PM/TPM partners on roadmaps, prioritization, and delivery commitments.
Represent Copilot Security Engineering in architecture reviews, risk assessments, and cross‑team security initiatives.
Deliver engineering capabilities that increase detection coverage, accelerate time‑to‑mitigation, and provide auditable, repeatable evaluation workflows across AI systems.
Drive simplification, reusable patterns, and platform approaches that scale across Microsoft's AI ecosystem.
Communicate technical strategy, progress, risks, and results clearly to leadership and partner teams.