Principal Software Engineering Manager

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

About The Position

The Enterprise + Devices Licensing Engineering team designs and operates the core services that power how Microsoft products are licensed and activated at global scale. Our team is responsible for building highly reliable, secure, and performant systems that underpin Microsoft 365 and Copilot across consumers, businesses, and enterprises worldwide. We sit at the heart of Microsoft’s licensing ecosystem—owning the platforms that enable customers to acquire, activate, and use Microsoft products seamlessly. Our work directly impacts revenue integrity, customer trust, and the ability for teams across Microsoft to innovate and ship at speed. Operating across multiple geographies and partner organizations, the team tackles complex technical and business challenges in a fast‑paced, collaborative environment. We are looking for a Principal Software Engineering Manager to join the team. If you are passionate about building mission‑critical distributed systems, enjoy working at the intersection of engineering, commerce, and product strategy, and want to influence how Microsoft delivers value to hundreds of millions of customers, this team offers a unique opportunity to make a broad and lasting impact. As Microsoft continues its transformation toward cloud services and AI‑powered experiences, the Licensing Engineering team plays a foundational role in re‑inventing how products are delivered, governed, and scaled—ensuring every customer interaction with Microsoft starts from a trusted, resilient licensing platform. 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

Extensive years of industry experience designing, building, testing, shipping, and maintaining software and services.
Solid ability to attract, hire, and retain top talent.
Excellent leadership, collaboration, and communication skills.
Ability to operate at a high level in a fast paced, dynamic environment with competing priorities and ambiguity.
Ability to analyse, interpret, and communicate data to uncover opportunities for improvement.
Excellence in software engineering practices - system design, coding, testing, and monitoring, and analytical problem-solving skills.
Expertise in building and running proven highly available, highly scalable, reliable, concurrent, distributed systems.
Expertise in safe release, deployment and maintenance of cloud services using experimentation and telemetry.
Experience with one or more of the following - C#, ASP.NET, JavaScript, Service Fabric, Web Services, APIs.
Passion for making software engineering more efficient by designing and developing solutions at scale and make data driven decisions.
Deep commitment to inclusiveness and diversity.

Responsibilities

Lead a team of engineers, with responsibility of deep technical mentorship and career direction of team members.
Provide technical leadership for the design and implementation of the future architecture for proven highly scalable, resilient, durable, maintainable, performant services and user experiences.
Lead and actively participate in the full software development life cycle:
Create design and architecture documents.
Review artifacts and code.
Ensure safe release of updated experiences, with special consideration for security, privacy, compliance, and accessibility.
Foster a data driven approach with focus on the customer.
Collaborate with multiple teams across Microsoft for joint delivery of customer experiences.
Collaborate with multiple functions to drive the definition of requirements, KPIs, priorities and planning of engineering deliverables.
Evolve development guidelines, practices, systems, and tools to meet a world where client and services development and delivery is moving faster than ever.