Principal Software Engineer
Microsoft
Principal Software Engineer
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
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Overview
We are seeking a highly driven Principal Software Engineer to lead with technical vision, hands-on execution, and a strong sense of accountability. This role is ideal for an engineering leader who thrives on solving complex problems, influencing cross-functional teams, and driving architectural and organizational transformation. You’ll operate across the entire stack, influence technical direction, and help shape the culture and values of the engineering organization.
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.
Qualifications
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, JavaScript, TypeScript, or C++
- OR equivalent experience.
- 6+ years experience development in cloud-based environments, including, but not limited to, Azure, AWS, and Google.
- 6+ years experience influencing and aligning diverse stakeholders across product, design, marketing, research, and business disciplines
- 2+ years experience working with AI/ML-powered solutions, including but not limited to OpenAI and Large Language Models (LLMs).
- 3+ years experience designing and building web services
- 7+ years of experience with Windows operating system and application development.
- 7+ years program management experience overseeing multiple simultaneous projects, ensuring meticulous attention to detail, and consistently involved effective cross-group collaboration and communication.
- Demonstrated expertise in collaborating with external engineering partners to design, build, or integrate technical solutions. This includes coordinating across organizational boundaries to align architecture, drive joint development efforts, troubleshoot complex issues, and ensure the successful delivery of shared goals.
- Ability to think strategically while diving deep into details, you can balance big-picture vision with day-to-day execution
- Dedication for customer-centric innovation, a commitment to operational excellence, and a focus on fostering inclusive, high-performance team cultures.
Responsibilities
- Partners with appropriate stakeholders to determine user requirements for a set of scenarios.
- Leads identification of dependencies and the development of design documents for the product and service.
- Leads by example and mentors others to produce extensible and maintainable code used across products.
- Leverages subject-matter expertise of cross-product features with appropriate stakeholders (e.g., project managers) to drive multiple group's project plans, release plans, and work items.
- Holds accountability as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI), mentoring engineers across the team, working on-call to monitor the product and service for degradation, downtime, or interruptions.
- Proactively seeks new knowledge and adapts to new trends, technical solutions, and patterns that will improve the availability, reliability, efficiency, observability, and performance of the product while also driving consistency in monitoring and operations at scale and shares knowledge with other engineers.