below marketmost similar roles pay hereabove market
This role pays more than
60%
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
585 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$119,800–$234,700
across 561 roles with salary data.
As a Principal Software Engineer - CoreAI, you will join the team responsible for the availability, durability, and performance of large-scale Azure SQL databases supporting a production Azure service. You will lead deep performance tuning, including query plan analysis, indexing strategies, and stored procedure optimization while diagnosing complex issues like deadlocks, resource contention, and latency spikes. Your role involves partnering with architects to influence schema design, transaction boundaries, and consistency models. You will design automated schema changes and data migrations on live systems while defining capacity planning models and telemetry for early-warning indicators. Required skills include experience with Azure SQL, geo-replication, and distributed systems fundamentals. You must possess proficiency in languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python to build reusable tooling and automation.
What does a Software Engineer earn in Remote?
Median $208800 from 319 postings across 50 companies.
Own the availability, durability, and performance of large-scale Azure SQL databases in production.
Lead performance tuning for query plans, indexing strategies, concurrency control, and stored procedure optimization.
Diagnose and resolve complex issues including deadlocks, blocking, resource contention, and latency spikes.
Define capacity planning models, performance guardrails, and growth readiness strategies.
Review and guide database design proposals for schema, access patterns, and consistency models.
Lead the design and execution of automated schema changes and data migrations on live systems.
Define and evolve deep telemetry for latency, throughput, waits, and early-warning indicators.
Serve as the database technical authority during live-site incidents and lead root cause analysis.
What we're looking for
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field and 6+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages like C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python (or equivalent experience).
Extensive experience operating and administering Azure SQL in large-scale, highly available, production environments.
Proven expertise in database performance tuning, troubleshooting, and optimization for high-traffic, mission-critical systems.
Strong understanding of distributed systems fundamentals as they apply to relational databases, including replication, failover, durability, and consistency.
Demonstrated experience designing and executing online schema changes and data migrations on live systems.
Experience providing technical leadership during high-severity incident response and driving long-term corrective actions.
Ability to influence engineers and architects without direct authority and set technical direction across teams.
Background in Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) or reliability-focused engineering roles (preferred).
Azure
Python
C++
C#
Java
JavaScript
C
Distributed Systems
Cloud Infrastructure
Machine Learning
DevOps
Software Architecture
Telemetry
High Availability