Principal Software Engineer

Intelligent Conversation and Communications Cloud (IC3) powers billions of real-time customer conversations across Microsoft. IC3 enables reliable, high-quality audio, video, calling, meeting, and messaging services that work seamlessly from anywhere and across all customer touchpoints. Our mission is to make conversations on Microsoft 365 platforms more intelligent in real time, empowering best-in-class productivity tools for the modern workplace, where every call, meeting, and chat helps make the next one better.

The Developer Excellence team within IC3 Engineering supports developers and business goals through tools, processes, and infrastructure built on Azure DevOps. Our goal is to reduce developer friction, enable faster and more secure software development, and accelerate the adoption of AI-powered capabilities. We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to provide hands-on technical leadership and play a key role in driving IC3's success.

Microsoft Development Centre Estonia offers an engaging, fast-paced environment where you can make an impact on millions of users around the world. We embrace diversity, encourage open-minded collaboration, and provide the flexibility needed to support a healthy work-life balance.

You can look forward to a modern work environment, industry-leading benefits, and access to the latest hardware and software. We subsidise food and beverages, gym memberships etc. Sports and gaming communities support employee wellbeing, while a focus on personal and professional growth helps you develop your career within IC3, MDCE and beyond.

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.

• Lead the architecture, technical strategy, and design of developer platforms, services, and tooling that support engineering teams across IC3 and its Azure DevOps ecosystem.
• Drive the adoption of AI-powered engineering capabilities, intelligent automation, agentic workflows, and LLM-enabled solutions that improve developer productivity and accelerate software delivery.
• Lead modernisation initiatives across build, test, release, source control, and developer workflows to improve consistency, reliability, scalability, and maintainability.
• Define and evolve common engineering platforms, frameworks, and services that reduce duplication, standardise practices, and enable teams to move faster with higher quality.
• Partner with engineering teams across IC3 and Microsoft to understand developer needs, align on technical direction, and deliver end-to-end solutions that improve the engineering experience.
• Influence technical roadmaps and investment decisions by working closely with engineering leaders, architects, product managers, and partner organisations.
• Evaluate technical tradeoffs, manage dependencies, and resolve complex architectural challenges that span multiple teams, products, and technology stacks.
• Champion engineering excellence through secure development practices, CI/CD automation, observability, telemetry, testing, reliability, and operational rigour.
• Drive improvements in developer productivity by identifying friction points, measuring outcomes through data, and delivering scalable solutions that simplify engineering workflows.
• Establish technical standards and industry practices, and governance models that support efficient, secure, and compliant software development across IC3.
• Mentor engineers through technical leadership, design reviews, code reviews, knowledge sharing, and hands-on problem solving.
• Foster an inclusive and collaborative engineering culture focused on ownership, accountability, continuous improvement, customer impact, and learning.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND solid technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
  • OR equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND extensive 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 extensive technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
  • OR equivalent experience. 
• Experience designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems, cloud platforms, production services, or enterprise software systems.
• Experience leading complex technical initiatives that span multiple teams, services, or organisations.
• Deep expertise in software architecture, system design, scalability, reliability, performance, and operational excellence.
• Proficiency in C#, Java, Python, C++, JavaScript, or similar programming languages.
• Demonstrated ability to influence without authority, align teams, and build effective partnerships with engineers, product managers, and leaders.
• Demonstrated technical leadership, problem-solving, and communication skills, including the ability to communicate effectively in spoken and written English.
• Solid understanding of data privacy, compliance, and security in large-scale distributed systems.
• Experience with Azure, AWS, GCP, or other cloud platforms; Azure experience preferred.
• Experience building or leading AI-powered solutions, production AI applications, LLM-enabled experiences, agentic workflows, intelligent automation, applied machine learning capabilities, or AI-assisted engineering practices.
• Experience with CI/CD, Azure DevOps, automated testing, monitoring, telemetry, observability, incident management, and DevOps practices.
• Ability to create clarity in ambiguous environments, influence without authority, and align stakeholders around durable technical decisions.
• Communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear engineering, product, and business direction.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor other engineers and raise the engineering bar across an organisation.

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across Estonia is € 70,600.00 - € 129,200.00 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.

Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/corporate-pay/estonia-corporate-pay.html

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.