Principal Software Engineer

Microsoft

Confirmed live yesterday High trust

Remote

Quick summary

Work type: Remote
Location: Remote
Salary: $142,800–$274,800 / yr
Posted: 2 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live yesterday
Closes: Mar 24, 2027

Market check

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 Table team, you will provide technical leadership for the architecture and development of next-generation metadata and indexing systems that power Azure Storage. You will be responsible for designing and evolving core primitives such as partitioning, indexing, transactions, consistency, logging, replication, caching, and high-performance read/write paths. The role involves solving complex distributed-systems challenges to manage metadata for trillions of objects and exabyte-scale storage while balancing scale, latency, availability, and efficiency. You will drive architectural decisions across multiple components, moving technologies from prototyping through production. Candidates should possess expertise in table systems, key-value stores, storage engines, or distributed storage. Required skills include proficiency in programming languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, Rust, or Python to optimize performance, scalability, and reliability within critical data paths.

What does a Software Engineer earn in Remote?

Median $205300 from 346 postings across 55 companies.

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Skills

Azure Storage Distributed Systems C C++ C# Java Rust Python Key-Value Stores Storage Engines Indexing Partitioning Caching Concurrency Data Access Mechanisms

What you'll do

Lead the architecture and development of next-generation table, metadata, and indexing systems for Azure Storage.
Design core primitives including partitioning, indexing, transactions, consistency, logging, replication, and caching.
Solve distributed systems challenges to manage metadata for trillions of objects at exabyte scale.
Balance system trade-offs between scale, latency, availability, reliability, and efficiency.
Drive architectural decisions across multiple components from initial design and prototyping through production.
Identify and deliver improvements in performance, scalability, and cost efficiency via deep analysis of data paths.
Develop high-performance read and write paths for foundational cloud storage technologies.

What we're looking for

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field and 6+ years of engineering experience in languages like C, C++, C#, Java, Rust, or Python.
Ability to pass Microsoft Cloud Background Check and other required security screenings.
Master's Degree in Computer Science or related field and 8+ years of engineering experience (preferred).
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field and 12+ years of engineering experience (preferred).
5+ years of experience designing or developing distributed storage, database, or large-scale distributed systems (preferred).
3+ years of experience designing or optimizing indexing, partitioning, caching, consistency, or data access mechanisms in distributed systems (preferred).
3+ years of experience diagnosing and optimizing performance, scalability, concurrency, or reliability of production systems (preferred).

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