Principal Software Engineering Manager

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Security represents the most critical priorities for our customers in a world awash in digital threats, regulatory scrutiny, and estate complexity. 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 Data Plane Team owns the foundation of the Microsoft Sentinel Data Lake, delivering secure, reliable, and performant data services at petabyte scale. As the Principal Software Engineering Manager of this team, you will lead a group of engineers solving complex, large-scale distributed systems challenges. You’ll drive the vision, strategy, and execution for the platform, enabling mission-critical security workloads across the globe. We are looking for a leader who thrives in high-scale environments, empowers teams to innovate, and is passionate about building resilient platforms that operate at massive scale. In the era of AI driven transformation, the SP&AI Organization has moved to a squad operating model to dramatically increase the velocity at which ideas become customer impact. The squad operating model is a structure where small, empowered, cross functional teams are each led by a single, accountable ‘squad leader’ who owns a specific customer outcome end to end, from vision and prioritization to execution, measurement, and continuous improvement. Success in this environment depends on fast, localized decision making, founder like accountability, and a culture of continuous learning. Squad leaders (Principal Software Engineering Managers) benefit from focused accountability, streamlined decision making, and solid organizational support that enables them to move faster and deliver measurable customer outcomes. 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. In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day. This Hybrid Position is located at our Microsoft office in Redmond, Washington. Relocation support will be provided, and successful candidates will need to relocate or reside within 50 miles of the field location.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or related technical discipline 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.
5+ years of experience designing, building, and operating scalable, highly available cloud services or distributed systems on platforms such as Azure, AWS, GCP, or comparable cloud environments, with production ownership and CI/CD pipeline integration.
5+ years of experience managing software engineering teams, including responsibility for hiring, performance management, and career development.
5+ years of experience working with distributed data processing frameworks such as Apache Spark, Databricks, or similar technologies to transform and manage large-scale datasets.
5+ years of experience building systems with emphasis on reliability, durability, and operational efficiency, including experience with live site operations, incident response, and performance optimization.

Responsibilities

Lead the team shaping the Sentinel Platform Data Plane’s technical strategy, delivering scalable, reliable, high performance, and secure systems at petabyte scale.
Drive high scale distributed services for data ingestion, storage, and query workloads that power mission critical security scenarios.
Partner across product, security, and platform teams to align priorities and deliver customer impacting outcomes, while ensuring operational excellence in reliability, live site health, efficiency, cost, and latency.
Drive strategic clarity and customer focused decision making, leveraging deep technical expertise and market understanding to identify opportunities, forecast trends, and guide investments aligned to Sentinel Platform goals.
Build dependable customer, partner, and stakeholder relationships, staying closely engaged to understand needs and ensure we deliver outstanding value that builds long-term trust.
Grow and empower a high performing team, hiring and developing talent while fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and accountability.
Enable cross functional execution across Sentinel Platform and Microsoft Security.
Mentor the team to build dependable internal and external partnerships, design and deploy solutions that address threats, and meet all requirements for incident response and long-term prevention.
Guide the team in defining new features and solutions that reduce recurrence and strengthen resilience.
Oversee analytics and data driven insights, integrating key metrics, KPIs, and operational signals to identify trends and resolve customer issues.
Drive strategies to close measurement gaps, prioritize findings effectively, and ensure timely resolution of high impact problems.
Evaluate emerging analytical tools and technologies, sharing insights across teams to drive adoption and improve effectivenes.
Embody our culture and values