Principal Software Engineer

Microsoft

Confirmed live today High trust

Hybrid

Quick summary

Work type: Hybrid
Location: —
Salary: $165,600–$296,400 / yr
Posted: 2 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live today
Closes: Apr 6, 2027

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $197k

This role $231k

$124k $315k

below market most similar roles pay here above market

This role pays more than 83% of similar roles. Most pay $173,737–$220,800 — the blue band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $231k versus about $197k 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 648 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $119,800–$234,700 across 624 roles with salary data.

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At a glance

TL;DR · Principal Software Engineer

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The Principal Software Engineer joins the Dataverse Intelligence Platform organization to build the next generation of AI-native business data and intelligence systems. You will provide technical leadership to design and evolve cloud-native distributed systems that power enterprise-grade applications, copilots, and agents. Key responsibilities include defining platform strategy, architecting intelligent services like retrieval and grounding systems, and driving AI-native engineering practices across the software development lifecycle. You will work with complex systems involving semantic intelligence, process intelligence, and hyperscale infrastructure. The role requires proficiency in languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python, alongside experience with Azure, containerized workloads, and CI/CD. You will solve technical challenges to transform enterprise data into actionable intelligence while ensuring scalability, security, and operational excellence for mission-critical business processes.

What does a Software Engineer earn?

Median $196750 from 2601 postings across 154 companies.

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Skills

Python C# Java C++ JavaScript C Azure Distributed Systems Cloud-Native CI/CD LLM Infrastructure as Code Observability Telemetry Data Architecture Agent Orchestration Semantic Intelligence DevOps Containerized Workloads

What you'll do

Lead architecture, technical strategy, and design for large-scale business data and AI cloud platform systems.
Design cloud-native distributed systems for enterprise applications, copilots, and agents with a focus on scalability and security.
Develop AI-native platform capabilities including retrieval systems, semantic intelligence, and agent orchestration.
Drive the evolution of Dataverse to transform enterprise data into actionable intelligence and business outcomes.
Champion AI-native engineering practices throughout the software development lifecycle to improve developer productivity and quality.
Define modernization strategies to improve platform consistency, resiliency, and developer experience across the business application ecosystem.
Establish reusable platform patterns, APIs, and data models to enable teams to build AI-powered solutions faster.
Mentor engineers through technical leadership, architecture reviews, and design coaching.

What we're looking for

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field and 8+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages like C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python (or equivalent experience).
Ability to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire and every two years thereafter.
Experience designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems, cloud platforms, data platforms, AI services, or enterprise software systems (preferred).
Experience building foundational platform capabilities that serve multiple products, services, customers, or engineering organizations at scale (preferred).
Deep expertise in software architecture, distributed systems, data architecture, reliability engineering, scalability, performance optimization, and operational excellence (preferred).
Experience with Azure, cloud-native architectures, containerized workloads, platform services, and hyperscale cloud infrastructure (preferred).
Experience developing AI-powered applications, LLM-enabled experiences, retrieval and grounding systems, agent frameworks, or production AI services (preferred).
Experience with modern engineering practices including CI/CD, infrastructure as code, automated testing, observability, telemetry, and incident management (preferred).

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