| Microsoft Careers

Microsoft

Quick summary

Work type
On-site
Location
WA
Salary
$142,800–$274,800 / yr
Posted
83 days ago
Closes
Sep 20, 2026

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $201k
This role $209k
$127k most similar roles pay here $291k

This role pays more than 66% of similar roles. Most pay $177,250–$225,000 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $209k versus about $201k for comparable roles.

Based on 239 similar postings.

Employer

About Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology leader producing software, hardware, and cloud services including Windows, Office 365, Azure cloud platform, Xbox gaming, and Surface devices. Industry: Software & Cloud Computing

Microsoft currently has 1580 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $119,800–$234,700 across 1408 roles with salary data.

Most-posted roles

View all roles at Microsoft

At a glance

TL;DR · | Microsoft Careers

As a Principal Software Engineering Manager at Microsoft Substrate, you will lead a team of Site Reliability Engineers and Software Engineers responsible for building and maintaining critical cloud services like Exchange Online and M365 Copilot. Your role involves defining technical and organizational strategies, coaching managers to scale operational excellence, and ensuring high-quality software engineering practices. You will own the end-to-end health of your organization’s services, balancing feature delivery with reliability, security, and compliance. Key responsibilities include guiding design decisions, driving incident management, and developing senior talent while partnering closely with product, security, and operations teams to deliver durable, scalable services in highly regulated environments. The ideal candidate should have strong technical depth, operational judgment, and experience in regulated cloud service contexts, along with the ability to obtain necessary security clearances for access to Microsoft Government cloud environments.

What you'll do

  • Lead and develop Site Reliability Engineering Managers to build strong, accountable SRE organizations.
  • Ensure high-quality execution across the engineering lifecycle for a set of Software Engineering ICs.
  • Own end-to-end engineering and operational health, balancing feature delivery with reliability and security.
  • Establish technical and organizational strategy, aligning investments with business priorities and long-term goals.
  • Guide engineering design decisions to embed reliability, diagnosability, security, and compliance early on.
  • Drive incident management and post-incident reviews for systemic improvements and long-term resilience.

What we're looking for

  • Strong technical depth and operational judgment for leading mixed engineering teams.
  • Proven ability to develop senior engineering leaders and manage talent succession.
  • Expertise in defining and driving technical and organizational strategy at scale.
  • Experience in incident management, learning culture, and post-incident reviews.
  • Capability to guide engineering design decisions with a focus on reliability and security.
  • Security clearance for Microsoft Government cloud environments (T3 or T5 preferred).
  • Eligibility and ability to obtain CJIS eligibility requirements if needed.

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