Principal Software Engineer

Microsoft

Confirmed live yesterday High trust

Hybrid

Quick summary

Work type: Hybrid
Location: —
Salary: $165,600–$296,400 / yr
Posted: 3 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live yesterday
Closes: May 2, 2027

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $192k

This role $231k

$124k $315k

below market most similar roles pay here above market

This role pays more than 84% of similar roles. Most pay $169,550–$214,500 — the blue band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $231k 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 676 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $119,800–$234,700 across 630 roles with salary data.

Most-posted roles

View all roles at Microsoft

At a glance

TL;DR · Principal Software Engineer

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The Principal Software Engineer joins the Azure PostgreSQL team within the Databases organization to drive innovations in relational database engines. This role involves overseeing system architecture for high-impact spaces, creating strategic roadmaps, and establishing policies for developing extensible, maintainable code. The engineer will work on query processing, transaction logging and recovery, versioning, IO subsystems, and scale-out or distributed systems. Key responsibilities include writing proof of concept code, conducting code reviews, and maintaining live service operations on a rotational basis. Candidates must possess 10+ years of experience coding in languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python. The role requires deep knowledge of PostgreSQL internals, storage engines, high availability, data structures, algorithms, and building production-grade distributed cloud services.

What does a Software Engineer earn?

Median $196000 from 2484 postings across 146 companies.

See salary data

Skills

PostgreSQL C C++ C# Java Python JavaScript Azure SQL MySQL DocumentDB Distributed Systems Query Processing Storage Engine High Availability Linux Data Engineering Data Factory Synapse Analytics Power BI Cosmos DB

What you'll do

Oversee the overall system architecture for high-impact technical domains and critical products.
Create and document strategic roadmaps for evolving system architectures.
Establish policies for developing extensible, reusable, and maintainable code.
Conduct effective code reviews and identify coding issues for critical systems.
Write proof of concept code and develop production code as needed.
Maintain live service operations on a rotational, on-call basis.
Drive innovations in relational database engine areas like query processing and transaction logging.

What we're looking for

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or a related technical discipline.
10+ years of technical engineering experience coding in languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python.
Equivalent experience to the degree and years of experience requirements.
Ability to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check.
8+ years of experience developing and shipping system-level features in an enterprise production backend server system (preferred).
4+ years of experience building and supporting production-grade distributed cloud services (preferred).
Experience with internals of PostgreSQL or similar Enterprise Database Management systems (preferred).
Experience building distributed systems with strong guarantees (preferred).

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