Principal Software Engineer

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Principal Software Engineer in USA

Microsoft
Full time
Email

USA
09/19/2026
Report

Redmond, WA

Responsibilities

Lead the architecture, design, implementation, and delivery of complex software systems for intelligent agent experiences across Windows.
Define long-term technical vision and architecture across Windows, local and cloud AI models, agent orchestration, platform services, and customer-facing experiences.
Translate ambiguous customer and business needs into technical requirements, system designs, execution plans, and measurable outcomes.
Partner with product management, design, applied science, security, privacy, and engineering teams across Microsoft.
Make architectural decisions and engineering tradeoffs involving performance, reliability, scalability, compatibility, maintainability, security, privacy, and time to market.
Build prototypes, contribute production code, debug complex systems, and lead technical design and code reviews.
Establish engineering standards and reusable patterns for developing, integrating, testing, deploying, and operating Windows and AI capabilities.
Promote responsible AI, secure-by-design development, privacy, accessibility, and compliance.
Improve engineering quality through automated testing, telemetry, diagnostics, performance analysis, experimentation, and disciplined releases.
Establish service-health measures, improve troubleshooting, and lead resolution of complex live-site issues.
Identify cross-team dependencies and technical risks, align mitigation plans, and remove engineering barriers.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field and 4+ years of technical engineering experience with coding, or equivalent experience.
Ability to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements, including the Microsoft Cloud background check.
Preferred: master's degree with 8+ years of technical engineering experience, or bachelor's degree with 12+ years of experience, or equivalent experience.
Experience designing, developing, debugging, and testing complex systems software, including kernel-mode and user-mode components.
Experience with multithreaded software development, systems programming, APIs, and drivers.
Understanding of Windows and/or Linux internals, virtualization technologies, VM/host architectures, and containerized environments.
Experience developing low-level systems software, platform services, networking infrastructure, or operating system components.
Knowledge of networking fundamentals, including protocols, packet analysis, packet switching, and packet filtering.
Strong architectural design and problem-solving abilities with a record of delivering scalable production software across multiple release cycles.
Strong written and verbal communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Benefits

The position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until filled.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation; additional benefits and pay information is provided through Microsoft's careers site.

Salary: $143k - $304k/yr

Microsoft

Every company has a mission. What's ours? To empower every person and every organization to achieve more. We believe technology can and should be a force for good and that meaningful innovation contributes to a brighter world in the future and today. Our culture doesn’t just encourage curiosity; ...

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