Principal Software Engineer
About The Position
The Microsoft Substrate Data Plane team powers the foundational services that enable Microsoft 365 experiences at planetary scale. Our platform processes and serves billions of signals, messages, documents, and interactions across Exchange, Teams, Copilot, and emerging AI-powered experiences. We build highly available, low-latency, massively distributed services that form the backbone of Microsoft's productivity cloud. We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to help shape the next generation of intelligent data services and agent-enabled platforms. In this role, you will lead the architecture, development, and operation of large-scale distributed systems that support Copilot, AI agents, search, retrieval, indexing, and data processing workloads across Microsoft 365. 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.
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.
- Experience with modern AI-driven software development practices, tools, and feedback loops, leveraging AI to accelerate engineering velocity, enhance developer productivity, and improve software quality.
Responsibilities
- Design, build, and operate large-scale, highly available cloud services that power Microsoft 365 experiences for billions of requests and millions of users worldwide.
- Drive architecture, development, and delivery of distributed systems focused on scalability, reliability, performance, security, and operational excellence.
- Develop platform capabilities that enable AI-powered experiences, including agent orchestration, tool execution, data access, grounding, and workflow automation.
- Partner with product teams, service owners, and platform engineers to deliver intelligent, end-to-end experiences across Microsoft 365.
- Leverage telemetry, automation, and AI-assisted diagnostics to improve service health, accelerate incident mitigation, and enhance engineering productivity.
- Lead complex technical initiatives across teams, influence long-term platform strategy, and drive engineering best practices.
- Mentor engineers and foster a culture of innovation, ownership, and continuous improvement.
- Embody our culture and values
Benefits
- Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Principal
