Principal Software Engineer

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

4h•$142,800 - $304,200

About The Position

Join the Intelligent Conversation and Communications Cloud (IC3), the platform powering Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and next-generation AI experiences for millions of users worldwide. We are building the infrastructure that transforms real-time conversations, meetings, voice, video, and collaboration signals into intelligent, actionable experiences. As a Principal Software Engineer, you will design and build a compliant Flink-based streaming processing platform on container infrastructure, with self-service and agent-assisted experiences that help teams onboard, govern, and operate streaming workloads. We will also dogfood the platform by building key streaming scenarios ourselves, including distributed tracing pipelines, near-real-time operational analytics, telemetry enrichment, and other high-value Microsoft 365 data workflows. 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.
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.
Production big data platform experience, including streaming pipelines, platform capabilities, state management, checkpointing, connectors, or performance tuning.
Container platform experience with Kubernetes, Cosmic, Azure, or comparable infrastructure.
Experience with Spark, Kafka, Airflow, distributed storage, analytical systems, or near-real-time data pipelines.
Experience with Copilot, Agent, LLM orchestration, retrieval, evaluation, or agent-assisted engineering and data workflows.
Domain knowledge in distributed tracing, observability, production diagnostics, telemetry systems, or service reliability.
Experience building large-scale distributed systems, cloud services, or enterprise platforms.
Proficiency in one or more programming languages such as C#, C++, Java, Python, or JavaScript.
Experience designing reliable, highly available production services.
Solid problem-solving skills with the ability to navigate ambiguity and drive technical decisions.
Proven ability to collaborate across teams and influence technical direction.
Passion for innovation, customer impact, and building services that operate at global scale.

Responsibilities

Lead the design and development of large-scale, self-service AI, agentic, and data-platform capabilities and frameworks
Advance AI-native software development through coding agents, agentic workflows, and harness engineering.
Drive cross-team technical alignment by partnering with engineering and product teams across Microsoft to define requirements and deliver trusted, end-to-end data solutions.
Drive innovation by leveraging Microsoft Azure, AI technologies, and open-source frameworks