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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
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Listed pay typically runs
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The Principal Software Engineer joins the Agent Tools and Lifecycle team within the Copilot, Agents and Platform organization. As a hands-on individual contributor, you will serve as the technical leader for the AI plugin registry's Azure Cosmos DB tier. Your primary responsibility is to eliminate throttling, improve reliability, and reduce latency by optimizing request unit consumption, fixing hot partitions, and managing data migrations with zero downtime. You will build and maintain the service behind the AI plugin registry, which governs skills, connectors, and agents across various products. You must utilize C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python, alongside expertise in Azure Cosmos DB, MongoDB, DynamoDB, or Cassandra. You will also leverage Azure Blob Storage, Azure Functions, Service Bus, and Azure Cache for Redis to solve complex distributed database scaling problems.
What does a Software Engineer earn in Washington?
Median $202800 from 396 postings across 35 companies.
Reduce request unit consumption by converting cross-partition queries into point reads and tuning indexes.
Implement targeted fixes to eliminate database throttling and improve production reliability.
Fix hot partitions by redesigning partition keys, document structures, and API contracts.
Migrate large or rarely queried content from Cosmos DB to Azure Blob Storage.
Optimize database paths using batching, request coalescing, caching, and load shedding.
Establish throttling budgets for callers and implement client-side caching strategies.
Own telemetry, dashboards, and alerts to measure RU usage, partition skew, and latency.
Serve as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI) for 24/7 on-call incident response.
What we're looking for
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field and 6+ years of technical engineering experience in languages like C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python (or equivalent).
Ability to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check.
4+ years of experience building or operating large-scale distributed databases like Azure Cosmos DB, MongoDB, Amazon DynamoDB, or Apache Cassandra (preferred).
Experience finding and fixing throttling, hot partitions, or resource-heavy cross-partition queries in production databases (preferred).
Experience building or improving the internals of Azure Cosmos DB or comparable distributed databases (preferred).
Deep, hands-on Azure Cosmos DB expertise including RUs, partitioning, indexing, and consistency levels (preferred).
Track record of reducing throttling and tail latency in production with high-ROI changes and measurements (preferred).
Proficiency in C# and .NET and experience with Azure services like Azure Functions and Service Bus (preferred).
Distributed Systems
AI Tools
cross platform development
Software Design
Debugging
Performance Analysis
Test Design
Scalable Services
Security
Operational Excellence
Distributed Systems
AWS
AI
LLM
CI/CD
GitOps
Event Streaming
Delta Lake
In-memory Data Grids
Rules Engine
Prompt Engineering
Model Observability
Platform Engineering