below marketmost similar roles pay hereabove market
This role pays more than
71%
of similar roles. Most pay
$169,550–$214,500
— the blue band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$209k
versus about
$192k
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
692 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$119,800–$234,700
across 649 roles with salary data.
The Principal Software Engineer joins the Microsoft 365 Copilot team to shape next-generation long-running agentic capabilities and multi-model experiences. This role involves building scalable, reliable distributed backend services that enable agents to perform complex, multi-step tasks and power specific experiences like Critique and Council. You will translate technical strategy into executable plans, owning the full lifecycle from architecture and implementation to shipping and production reliability. Key responsibilities include defining rigorous evaluation methodologies, offline benchmarks, and online experimentation frameworks to measure model performance. The position requires proficiency in languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python. You will work with frontier models to solve technical problems involving retrieval-augmented generation, agent orchestration, tool integration, and model gateways within an enterprise AI context.
What does a Software Engineer earn?
Median $196000 from 2584 postings across 147 companies.
Define technical strategy and architecture for long-running agentic capabilities and multi-model experiences.
Build and own scalable distributed backend services from design through production operation.
Define rigorous evaluation methodologies, offline benchmarks, and online experimentation frameworks to measure performance.
Translate emerging AI capabilities into meaningful customer experiences by making sound technical tradeoffs.
Lead complex initiatives across organizations by aligning stakeholders and defining technical interfaces.
Implement engineering best practices through mentoring, architecture reviews, and creating reusable patterns.
Champion responsible AI-assisted and agentic engineering to improve development agility and quality.
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).
Ability to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check.
Master’s degree in computer science or related technical field and 6+ years of experience, or a bachelor’s degree and 8+ years of experience (preferred).
Experience designing, building, shipping, and operating large-scale distributed systems, cloud services, or complex production platforms (preferred).
Experience building production AI systems using LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation, agent orchestration, tool integration, or model gateways (preferred).
Experience with AI evaluation and prompt management for production applications (preferred).
Demonstrated ability to lead complex technical initiatives, influence architectural decisions, and align teams through clear communication (preferred).
Knowledge of Responsible AI, AI safety practices, and data-governance requirements for enterprise AI systems (preferred).
Python
C++
C#
Java
JavaScript
C
Distributed Systems
Large Language Models
Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Agent Orchestration
Azure
AI Evaluation
Prompt Management
Cloud Services
data-governance
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