below marketmost similar roles pay hereabove market
This role pays more than
68%
of similar roles. Most pay
$169,550–$220,800
— the blue band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$209k
versus about
$195k
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
694 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$119,800–$234,700
across 651 roles with salary data.
The Principal Software Engineer joins the team responsible for the Bing Ads platform to shape the future of the auction platform, which is the core system powering ad delivery. In this role, you will lead technical direction, solve complex engineering challenges, and drive high-impact projects from concept to delivery. You will own critical components of the ads serving stack, modernizing shared platform capabilities and integrating new AI-powered features. Key responsibilities include leading the evolution of the core auction and pricing engine while improving scalability, performance, and developer productivity. You will utilize coding skills in C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python to build large-scale distributed systems. This work addresses the technical challenges of high-scale, low-latency online advertising and complex production systems.
What does a Software Engineer earn?
Median $197400 from 2576 postings across 150 companies.
Own critical components of the ads serving stack to improve scalability, performance, and reliability.
Lead the evolution of the core auction and pricing engine to ensure low latency and business correctness.
Drive high-impact technical initiatives from concept to delivery by defining strategy and aligning multiple teams.
Set architectural direction by leading design reviews and modernizing shared platform capabilities.
Integrate new AI-powered capabilities into the auction platform in partnership with cross-functional teams.
Advance developer productivity through improved tooling, automation, and platform investments.
Manage operational excellence for a high-scale platform through incident response, capacity planning, and performance optimization.
Mentor engineers and establish high engineering standards to raise the technical bar across the organization.
What we're looking for
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field and 6+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages like C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python (or equivalent).
Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field and 8+ years of technical engineering experience (preferred).
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field and 12+ years of technical engineering experience (preferred).
5+ years of experience owning and operating production services as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI) or on-call owner (preferred).
Proven experience designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems throughout the full software development lifecycle (preferred).
Proven ability to lead technical initiatives across teams, influence architectural decisions, and communicate effectively with cross-functional partners (preferred).
Experience with online advertising, search, or other high-scale, low-latency distributed systems (preferred).
Experience building shared platforms, frameworks, or developer productivity solutions (preferred).
Distributed Systems
Vector Index
C++
Python
Java
C#
JavaScript
Search Engine
Approximate-nearest-neighbor search
LLM
Big Data
System Architecture
Performance Optimization
Data Access Patterns
Software Development Lifecycle
Video Coding
AV1
AV2
AVC
HEVC
VVC
Deep Learning
Computer Vision
C++
Python
gStreamer
Docker
REST APIs
XML
JSON
Git
GitHub
ABR Algorithms
Video Processing