below marketmost similar roles pay hereabove market
This role pays more than
62%
of similar roles. Most pay
$174,600–$231,000
— the blue band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$209k
versus about
$203k
for comparable roles.
Based on 240 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
694 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$119,800–$234,700
across 651 roles with salary data.
The Principal Software Engineer - CoreAI joins the team to build and evolve distributed services that underpin massive training runs. This role focuses on improving iteration loops for researchers and engineers by applying advanced performance optimization techniques to impact product quality and operational excellence. You will develop deep expertise in ML systems, AI infrastructure, and compute orchestration while integrating Responsible AI practices into the software development lifecycle. Key responsibilities include leading architecture discussions, mentoring engineers, and managing live site reliability. You will utilize technologies including C, C++, C#, Python, Java, and JavaScript. Specific experience with vLLM, SGLang, VERL, Slime, and Ray is required. You must possess deep knowledge of containers, GPU computing, and distributed training infrastructure to solve complex problems in training and inference systems.
What does a Software Engineer earn?
Median $197400 from 2576 postings across 150 companies.
Build and evolve distributed services that underpin massive training runs.
Apply advanced performance optimization techniques to improve product quality and operational excellence.
Own and lead the architecture of complex products, ensuring they meet performance, scalability, and cost requirements.
Develop and maintain AI-native tools and practices across the software development lifecycle.
Mentor others to produce extensible, maintainable, and performant code while establishing coding best practices.
Break down long-term project visions into milestones and manage project plans with stakeholders.
Maintain live site services and lead incident response, postmortems, and troubleshooting improvements.
Evaluate and integrate new technologies to solve complex problems within existing systems.
What we're looking for
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in C, C++, C#, Python, or Java (or equivalent).
Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in C, C++, C#, Python, or Java (or equivalent).
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python (or equivalent).
Deep knowledge of containers, GPU computing, and distributed training infrastructure.
Hands-on experience with inference technologies such as vLLM, SGLang, and disaggregated inference.
Experience with training and orchestration technologies such as VERL, Slime, and Ray.
Demonstrated ability to modify, optimize, or improve models and training/inference systems.
Prior experience in reinforcement learning, post-training, container workloads, and cloud software development (preferred).
Azure AI Search
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
C#
Java
C++
Python
Rust
Distributed Systems
Cloud-Native Architecture
Vector Databases
Information Retrieval
Telemetry
Monitoring
SaaS
Networking
Storage Systems
Azure SQL
SQL
C#
Python
Java
C++
C
JavaScript
Distributed Systems
SRE
Schema Design
Data Migration
Performance Tuning
Capacity Planning
geo‑replication
Failover Groups
Root Cause Analysis
Telemetry
Automation