Principal Software Engineer

Microsoft • Redmond, WA

18h • Hybrid

About The Position

The Bing Multimedia team is shaping the next generation of AI-powered visual discovery, helping people explore, understand, and make decisions through images at global scale. We build the intelligent systems that power Bing Image Search and multimodal experiences across Microsoft’s AI ecosystem.
As a Principal Software Engineer on the Image Search Experience team, you will define and build AI-native platforms that combine multimodal understanding, large language models, and high-performance distributed systems to deliver rich, adaptive visual experiences. You will work across system architecture, core services, and experience-level intelligence to enable new ways for users to search, explore, and interact with visual information.
This role offers the opportunity to operate at the highest level of individual contribution: setting technical direction, shaping foundational systems, and delivering production-grade AI experiences used by millions of people worldwide.
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.
Starting January 26, 2026, Microsoft AI (MAI) employees who live within a 50- mile commute of a designated Microsoft office in the U.S. or 25-mile commute of a non-U.S., country-specific location are expected to work from the office at least four days per week. This expectation is subject to local law and may vary by jurisdiction.

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
• 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 building search, recommendation, or large-scale information retrieval systems.
• Hands-on experience with LLMs, multimodal AI, or AI-driven reasoning systems in production.
• Experience designing evaluation, experimentation, and quality metrics for AI-powered systems.
• Background in image processing, computer vision, or content understanding pipelines.
• Track record of mentoring engineers and driving engineering best practices at scale.
• Solid product intuition and ability to balance user value, system complexity, and operational constraints.
• Deep expertise in distributed systems, backend services, and cloud-based architectures, including performance optimization and reliability at scale.
• Proven ability to lead and influence service architecture beyond a single team, while remaining hands-on in critical areas.
• Demonstrated ownership of high-impact technical problem spaces, from problem definition through delivery and long-term evolution.
• Experience integrating AI/ML capabilities into production systems, including large language models or agent-like systems.
• Experience working with metrics, quality signals, and experimentation, using data to evaluate system behavior and user impact.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for AI-powered image search, shaping how intelligent systems understand user intent, adapt to context, and deliver meaningful visual experiences at global scale.
• Own high-impact product and platform areas end to end, translating complex user needs into durable system designs and production-ready solutions.
• Apply large language models and multimodal AI in production, integrating reasoning and grounding capabilities to improve relevance, usefulness, and overall experience quality.
• Enable intelligent, adaptive experiences, ensuring image search systems make holistic decisions that guide users through exploration, refinement, and decision-making.
• Design and operate scalable platforms, driving high standards for performance, reliability, and efficiency under real-world workloads.
• Define success metrics and experimentation strategies, using data and user feedback to validate impact, guide tradeoffs, and inform long-term technical direction.
• Influence across teams and raise the engineering bar, partnering with product, design, data science, and platform teams, mentoring engineers, and guiding architecture and design reviews.

What This Job Offers

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