Principal Software Engineer

Microsoft

Confirmed live 2 days ago High trust

Quick summary

Work type: On-site
Location: —
Salary: $165,600–$296,400 / yr
Posted: 14 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live 2 days ago
Closes: Feb 24, 2027

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $200k

This role $231k

$124k most similar roles pay here $315k

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.

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At a glance

TL;DR · Principal Software Engineer

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As a Principal Software Engineer on the Azure Storage team, you will define technical directions for complex, business-critical components of cloud storage systems. You will drive architectural decisions and lead the development of breakthrough capabilities to improve reliability, scalability, performance, consistency, and debuggability at hyperscale. Your daily responsibilities include designing, developing, testing, and supporting features for highly scalable services while integrating AIOps practices to enhance observability and incident detection. The role focuses on solving engineering problems related to distributed storage architectures, hardware offloads, and large-scale systems integration. To succeed, you must possess extensive experience in coding with languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python. You will work on high-availability services while navigating the technical challenges of managing massive amounts of customer data across distributed systems.

What does a Software Engineer earn?

Median $197500 from 2196 postings across 133 companies.

See salary data

Skills

Azure Distributed Systems C C++ C# Java JavaScript Python AIOps Storage Systems Scalability Observability Hardware Acceleration Networking Technologies

What you'll do

Design, develop, test, and support features for highly scalable cloud storage services.
Build high-quality, secure, and compliant solutions for large-scale systems.
Maintain and support highly available services used by millions of daily users.
Provide technical leadership across multiple projects to align engineering priorities with business goals.
Drive architectural decisions for complex components involving distributed systems and hardware acceleration.
Implement AIOps practices to improve observability, incident detection, and root-cause analysis.
Deliver improvements in reliability, scalability, performance, consistency, and debuggability at hyperscale.

What we're looking for

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or a related technical field is required.
Candidates must have 8+ years of technical engineering experience coding in languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python.
Candidates with a Master's degree and 12+ years of experience or a Bachelor's and 15+ years of experience are preferred.
Candidates should be able to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check every two years.
Ability to meet specific Microsoft, customer, and government security screening requirements is required.
Preferred candidates have 7+ years of experience designing, building, and running large-scale, highly available cloud services or distributed systems.

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