Principal Software Engineering Manager

Microsoft • Redmond, WA

3h

About The Position

Are you a hands-on Engineering Manager who loves building foundational systems at massive scale — and pushing the frontier of what AI can do in real products? Do you thrive where distributed systems, ML, signal processing, and product feedback intelligence intersect? If yes — this is your opportunity. We are the Microsoft Sentiment Engineering team within Experiences & Devices, and we are building one of Microsoft’s most strategic platforms: the AI-powered Customer Feedback Intelligence Platform for all of Microsoft.
Our platform is used by hundreds of Microsoft products across Web, Mobile, Windows and Mac — powering the end-to-end feedback loop: collect -> classify ->derive insights with ML + LLMs ->prioritize ->act -> close the loop with customers.
This platform is business critical. It is a trust-sensitive, data-heavy, frontier AI system operating at massive scale — and it is now also powering Responsible AI signal pipelines, Eval workflows and next generation AI intelligence surfaces across Microsoft.
We are looking for a Principal Software Engineering Manager who is both deeply technical and a culture builder — someone who can modernize architecture, increase velocity and reliability, and lead engineers to deliver massively scalable AI + data systems that unlock compounding value across the entire company.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Python OR equivalent industry 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

• 4+ years people management experience.
• 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.
• Solid experience with large-scale distributed systems, high-throughput pipelines, or production ML/AI systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a high-impact engineering pod delivering a world-class, trustworthy AI-powered feedback and sentiment data platform.
• Modernize architecture for scale, resiliency, and low-latency AI inference workloads.
• Ensure high-quality engineering fundamentals: operational excellence, fault isolation, testing strategy, privacy, responsible data handling.
• Partner deeply with Product, Responsible AI, Applied Science and platform peers to accelerate AI capabilities and unlock new intelligence scenarios across Microsoft.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees