Principal Software Engineer

Windows + Devices powers experiences for over a billion users worldwide. The Windows Engineering System team is the backbone that enables Windows engineers to design, build, validate, and ship at scale - securely and with high quality.

The Quality & Validation team focuses on building engineering systems and delivering quality and validation services to be utilized by all these Windows products. We develop and manage scalable software services which use the power of automation, agentic tooling and implement standards to provide this service to our Windows partner teams.

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will be responsible for leading our effort to improve diagnosability, debuggability and step function improvement in the quality of the validation signals we provide customers. To do this you will be both a consumer and an exporter of agentic tooling, working both up and down and across our stack. You should be passionate about quality and software development at scale. With your experience and expertise in driving quality into software development you will partner across a variety of teams both internal and external to the Engineering System to drive durable improvements in our validation system, helping us build world-class engineering systems.

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.

• Partner with PMs, tech leads, and stakeholders to determine user requirements, leveraging continuous feedback loops and customer usage insights to inform design and solution quality.
• Lead architectural discussions, create design proposals, and make high‑confidence design decisions that consider security, compliance, performance, and future scalability.
• Identify cross‑team dependencies and coordinate across teams to ensure coherent systems, optimized performance, and reliable integration paths.
• Write, review, and maintain high‑quality, extensible, and maintainable code; mentor others in best practices and coding patterns.
• Lead debugging initiatives using telemetry, logs, and diagnostics to identify root causes and resolve complex issues effectively.
• Drive project and release planning by breaking long‑term vision into actionable milestones and guiding estimation and execution across teams.
• Lead experimentation, validation, and data‑informed decision‑making to ensure solutions meet customer value metrics.
• Serve as a DRI, leading incident response, building playbooks, mentoring others on operational excellence, and driving efforts to reduce incident volume across services.
• Integrate telemetry and observability frameworks, drive feedback loops, and ensure systems are reliable, scalable, and cost‑efficient.
• Lead improvements to engineering tools, automation, and workflows; champion security, privacy, accessibility, and compliance standards across teams.
• Stay current on emerging technologies, share knowledge, and promote consistency in engineering methodologies at scale.
• Act as a key contact for partner engineering teams across Microsoft (e.g., Xbox, Office) to ensure consistent user experiences and alignment on technical direction.
• Lead conflict resolution across teams, ensuring aligned priorities and smooth execution across interdependent systems.
• Model Microsoft’s culture of respect, integrity, and accountability, contributing to an inclusive environment and mentoring others on growth mindset behaviors.

Required/Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or related technical discipline AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C# / PowerShell, Java, JavaScript or Python
  • OR equivalent experience.

Additional or preferred qualifications

Other Requirements: 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. 

Preferred Qualifications:

• 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.
• Experience building and shipping production grade software or services.
• A track record of designing, deploying, and operating large scale services with high availability.
• Postmortem analysis and authoring for live site issues.
• Experience with build systems, and validation systems for hardware, software, and cloud services. 

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Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

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.