Principal Software Engineer

Microsoft

Quick summary

Work type: On-site
Location: US
Salary: $142,800–$274,800 / yr
Posted: 9 days ago
Closes: Dec 15, 2026
Nearby: 93 roles within 25 mi

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $177k

This role $209k

$124k most similar roles pay here $291k

This role pays more than 79% of similar roles. Most pay $145,343–$208,800 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $209k versus about $177k 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 622 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $119,800–$234,700 across 559 roles with salary data.

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At a glance

TL;DR · Principal Software Engineer

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Join the AI Frameworks team at Microsoft as a senior software engineer, where you will work on developing and evaluating core algorithmic and hardware technologies to enable large-scale inferencing and training of advanced AI models on novel AI hardware. Your day-to-day responsibilities include collaborating with ML researchers, system engineers, and production engineers, building software tools for LLM optimization validation, and performing software development in Python, C/C++, and CUDA. You will engage with key partners to assess performance and quality across different scales of state-of-the-art language models. This role requires hands-on experience in model scripting, kernel languages, and a track record of solving complex technical challenges in AI systems optimization.

Skills

Python C/C++ CUDA Kubernetes Terraform Docker CI/CD Prometheus Grafana PostgreSQL AWS Azure OpenAI LLMs Deep Neural Networks MLOps

What you'll do

Develop software tools to support validation and exploration of LLM optimization technologies.
Perform hands-on software development using Python, C/C++, CUDA for model scripting and kernel languages.
Engage with partners to evaluate performance and quality of state-of-the-art LLMs at various scales.
Collaborate with ML researchers and system engineers on AI framework projects.
Identify requirements and scope solutions for efficient AI systems.

What we're looking for

Extensive experience in developing and evaluating AI software for large-scale model training and inference.
Proficient in Python, C/C++, CUDA, and other relevant programming languages for AI systems.
Demonstrated ability to collaborate with researchers, engineers, and partners on complex projects.
Hands-on experience in building software tools for validating and optimizing LLM technologies.
Strong track record of solving challenging technical problems in AI system development.