Principal Software Engineer

Microsoft

Quick summary

Work type: On-site
Location: Redmond, WA
Salary: $142,800–$274,800 / yr
Posted: 72 days ago
Closes: Oct 18, 2026
Nearby: 99+ roles within 25 mi

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $176k

This role $209k

$121k most similar roles pay here $291k

This role pays more than 75% of similar roles. Most pay $142,450–$209,650 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $209k versus about $176k for comparable roles.

Based on 239 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 368 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $119,800–$234,700 across 347 roles with salary data.

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View all roles at Microsoft

At a glance

TL;DR · Principal Software Engineer

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As a Principal Engineer on Microsoft's Conditional Access team, you will lead the technical vision for scaling Conditional Access to meet future identity challenges such as autonomous agents and continuous authorization. Your daily responsibilities include defining the architecture for high-scale policy evaluation engines, designing portable data-driven policies, and driving cross-organizational alignment with teams like Identity Protection and Azure Networking. You must have deep expertise in distributed systems, experience with C# and large-scale .NET service development, and a strong background in identity infrastructure including OAuth2/OIDC. This role requires architectural leadership, the ability to make pragmatic tradeoffs, and a track record of defining multi-year technical strategies that span teams and organizations.

Skills

C# .NET OAuth2 OIDC Distributed Systems High-Performance Runtime Engines Policy/Rules Engines Identity Platforms ESTS CI/CD Zero Trust Principles Large-Scale Service Development Mentorship Architectural Leadership Pragmatic Tradeoffs

What you'll do

Define architecture for Conditional Access at identity-platform scale.
Own technical strategy for CA evaluation engine processing millions of evaluations per second.
Design next-generation policy model for portable, data-driven policies.
Drive convergence of token-time and continuous access evaluation into unified enforcement.
Lead technical vision for Conditional Access for AI agents and autonomous systems.

What we're looking for

Deep expertise in distributed systems, high-performance runtime engines, or policy/rules engines at extreme scale.
Strong background in identity, authentication, authorization, and security infrastructure, including OAuth2/OIDC and Zero Trust principles.
Fluency in C# and large-scale .NET service development; experience with ESTS or similar platforms preferred.
Proven ability to define and drive multi-year technical strategies across teams and organizations.
Experience making pragmatic tradeoffs between architectural purity and shipping velocity for production systems.
Track record of designing systems that evolve incrementally under live traffic without downtime.

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