Principal Software Engineer | Microsoft Careers

Microsoft

Hybrid

Quick summary

Work type
Hybrid
Location
Redmond, WA
Salary
$139,900–$274,800 / yr
Posted
25 days ago
Closes
Nov 7, 2026

Market check

Salary context

Competitive pay

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $193k
This role $207k
$124k most similar roles pay here $291k

This role pays more than 58% of similar roles. Most pay $174,200–$211,775 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $207k versus about $193k 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 728 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $119,800–$234,700 across 664 roles with salary data.

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View all roles at Microsoft

At a glance

TL;DR · Principal Software Engineer | Microsoft Careers

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As a Principal Software Engineer on the Web Data Platform Team’s Web Crawler team at Microsoft, you will play a pivotal role in scaling our hyper-scale distributed system that currently crawls tens of billions of URLs daily. Your responsibilities include leading architectural discussions and developing detailed design specifications to enhance the platform's throughput and global reach while minimizing server load. You will collaborate with stakeholders to confirm requirements, create testing strategies, and produce high-quality, secure code adhering to design standards. The team leverages machine learning models for effective resource usage and aims to containerize services to support large language model training needs. Proficiency in distributed systems, ML, and experience with web crawling are essential, as is a strong background in software engineering practices such as testing, debugging, and logging.

Skills

Kubernetes Docker CI/CD Python Go PostgreSQL AWS Azure Google Cloud Terraform Prometheus Grafana Machine Learning Large Language Models Logging Telemetry

What you'll do

  • Lead architectural discussions and own the architecture of hyper-scale distributed systems.
  • Develop detailed design specifications for scalable web crawling services.
  • Create a testing strategy to ensure product quality and prevent regression.
  • Produce secure, performant code that adheres to design specifications.
  • Use AI tools to verify assumptions and improve product quality continuously.

What we're looking for

  • Extensive experience in building and scaling hyper-scale distributed systems.
  • Proven track record of leading architectural discussions and owning system architecture.
  • Expertise in developing and testing scalable, secure, and performant code.
  • Strong background in using ML models for effective resource utilization in distributed platforms.
  • Experience with containerization technologies to enhance service scalability and deployment flexibility.
  • Deep understanding of web crawling principles and balancing freshness with server load minimization.

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