Senior Software Engineer

Microsoft • Redmond, WA

11d • $119,800 - $261,000

About The Position

The Microsoft 365 Copilot team is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to develop long-running agentic capabilities and multi-model experiences, including Critique and Council. The role focuses on building scalable, reliable backend systems that enable agents to complete complex, multi-step work and allow models to review one another’s outputs and combine research perspectives.

The engineer will take ideas from architecture through production, owning implementation, evaluations, shipping, and production reliability. The role involves working with frontier models and collaborating across Microsoft, including Microsoft Research, Azure, and MAI, to turn emerging AI capabilities into customer experiences. The successful candidate will bring strong technical judgment, a data-driven approach, and a commitment to engineering excellence in a fast-paced, high-visibility environment.

Microsoft describes its mission as empowering every person and organization to achieve more, and emphasizes a growth mindset, innovation, collaboration, respect, integrity, accountability, and inclusion.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field and 4+ years of technical engineering experience coding in languages including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python, or equivalent experience.
• Must meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements, including passing the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field and 4+ years of technical engineering experience, or a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and 6+ years of technical engineering experience coding in languages including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python, or equivalent experience.
• Experience designing, building, shipping, and operating large-scale distributed systems, cloud services, or complex production platforms.
• Experience building production AI systems using large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, agent orchestration, tool integration, or model gateways.
• Experience with AI evaluation and prompt management for production applications.
• Knowledge of Responsible AI and AI safety practices, including privacy, security, compliance, and data-governance requirements for enterprise AI systems.
• Experience with modern AI and agentic engineering practices, including workflow automation and AI-assisted development.

Responsibilities

• Define and build architecture for long-running agentic capabilities and multi-model experiences in Microsoft 365 Copilot, translating direction into executable plans and measurable outcomes.
• Build and own scalable distributed backend services powering experiences such as Critique and Council, from design and implementation through shipping and production operation.
• Use evaluation methodologies, offline benchmarks, and online experimentation frameworks to measure model and product performance, set quality standards, and guide data-driven iteration and release decisions.
• Turn emerging AI capabilities into customer experiences by partnering across disciplines, clarifying requirements, navigating ambiguity, and making sound technical tradeoffs.
• Mentor others and promote engineering best practices through architecture and code reviews, reusable patterns, and maintainable software.
• Champion responsible AI-assisted and agentic engineering to improve development agility, quality, learning, and speed.
• Foster inclusion, constructive collaboration, shared accountability, and continuous learning in keeping with Microsoft’s culture and values.

Benefits

• Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation; additional benefits and pay information is available through the Microsoft careers website.

What This Job Offers

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