This role pays more than
85%
of similar roles. Most pay
$174,600–$225,000
— the shaded band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$231k
versus about
$200k
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
598 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$119,800–$234,700
across 586 roles with salary data.
As a Principal Software Engineer on the Search platform team, you will define and drive the architecture strategy for compliant computation and storage. You will be responsible for establishing design principles for privacy, security, data residency, and regulatory compliance while building architectures that embed these requirements into the system by design. Your daily work involves managing large-scale distributed systems, petabyte-scale workloads, and modernizing data access, governance, lineage, auditing, retention, and deletion frameworks. You will collaborate with legal and security teams to translate regulations into scalable technical capabilities. The role requires expertise in storage systems, large-scale computation frameworks, and data lifecycle management. Candidates should be proficient in coding languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python to solve complex problems regarding how the platform processes, stores, and protects global data.
What does a Software Engineer earn in Washington?
Median $202800 from 326 postings across 28 companies.
Define the end-to-end architecture vision for compliant computation and storage services within the Bing Search ecosystem.
Establish platform-wide design principles for privacy, security, data residency, and regulatory compliance.
Drive architectural strategy for large-scale distributed storage and processing systems handling petabyte-scale workloads.
Translate complex legal and regulatory requirements into scalable technical capabilities in partnership with internal stakeholders.
Lead initiatives to modernize data access, governance, lineage, auditing, retention, and deletion frameworks.
Influence architectural decisions across multiple engineering teams through technical leadership and executive communication.
Evaluate emerging technologies to improve compliance posture while enhancing developer productivity and platform efficiency.
Develop multi-year roadmaps that align business objectives with compliance requirements and platform evolution.
What we're looking for
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field and 8+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages like C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python.
Master's Degree in Computer Science and 12+ years of experience, or a Bachelor's Degree and 15+ years of experience (preferred).
Proven experience architecting hyperscale distributed systems, data platforms, or cloud services (preferred).
Deep expertise in storage systems, large-scale computation frameworks, and data lifecycle management (preferred).
Solid understanding of privacy, security, compliance, and governance requirements in global cloud and data environments (preferred).
Demonstrated ability to drive architectural alignment across large, complex organizations (preferred).
Exceptional communication and executive influence skills with a track record of driving strategic technical decisions (preferred).
Experience establishing platform standards and technical direction across multiple products or business units (preferred).
Python
C#
Java
Go
C++
C
JavaScript
SQL
Azure
AWS
GCP
Distributed Systems
Data Pipelines
CI/CD
Backend Services
data-processing
System Design
Monitoring
Alerting
Analytics
LLM
Python
C++
C#
Java
JavaScript
Distributed Systems
Cloud-Native Architecture
Microservices
Retrieval
Prompt Orchestration
Data Modeling
System Design
Observability
Responsible AI