Principal Software Engineer

Microsoft

Confirmed live yesterday High trust

Hybrid

Quick summary

Work type: Hybrid
Location: —
Salary: $142,800–$274,800 / yr
Posted: 18 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live yesterday
Closes: Mar 8, 2027

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Salary context

Competitive pay

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $208k

This role $209k

$127k most similar roles pay here $291k

This role pays more than 57% of similar roles. Most pay $185,187–$231,000 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $209k versus about $208k 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 686 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $119,800–$234,700 across 666 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 Agent 365 Foundation team, you will define the technical direction and architecture for the compute platform supporting Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and agentic AI workloads. You will manage critical infrastructure components including container orchestration, networking, identity, and isolation layers to ensure secure, scalable execution of untrusted and AI-generated code. Day-to-day responsibilities involve leading multi-team projects from ambiguous requirements through deployment, managing capacity planning, and overseeing incident retrospectives. You will utilize technologies such as C#, .NET, Docker, Kubernetes, Azure Container Instances, Service Fabric, and ARM or Bicep templates for infrastructure as code. The role requires expertise in high-availability services, distributed tracing, and multi-tenant isolation to solve complex problems regarding reliability, deployment velocity, and cost efficiency within a large-scale cloud environment supporting mission-critical business applications.

What does a Software Engineer earn?

Median $196750 from 2011 postings across 148 companies.

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Skills

Azure Kubernetes Docker C# .NET Python Java C++ JavaScript Azure Kubernetes Service Service Fabric Azure Container Instances Infrastructure as Code CI/CD Bicep Azure DevOps Distributed Tracing Telemetry LLM

What you'll do

Set technical direction and own architecture for platform services and APIs that provision and secure containerized compute across Azure environments.
Drive multi-team infrastructure investments from ambiguous problem statements through design, staged rollout, and live-site operation.
Lead networking, identity, and isolation strategies to ensure secure execution of untrusted and AI-generated code.
Proactively lead verification of assumptions using telemetry, logs, and debugging tools to resolve issues before they reach production.
Lead incident retrospectives to identify root causes and implement mechanisms to prevent recurring service failures.
Manage capacity planning and infrastructure cost efficiency by analyzing telemetry data and aligning roadmaps with agentic workload trends.
Mentor engineers and improve organizational technical depth through code reviews and sharing of best practices.

What we're looking for

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field and 6+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages like C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python.
Master's Degree in Computer Science or related field and 8+ years of technical engineering experience (preferred).
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field and 12+ years of technical engineering experience (preferred).
Ability to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check (required).
Deep expertise with container technologies like Docker and Kubernetes, and Azure compute services such as AKS, Service Fabric, or Virtual Machine Scale Sets (preferred).
Expertise with Microsoft stack technologies, particularly C#, .NET, and core Azure platform services (preferred).
Experience with infrastructure as code, CI/CD, and safe deployment practices using ARM, Bicep, or Azure DevOps (preferred).
Proven ownership of high-availability services at scale, including on-call leadership, incident command, and root cause analysis (preferred).

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