Principal Software Engineer

Join the AI Agents Engineering Team at Microsoft!

Are you passionate about building cutting-edge AI backend services? The AI Agents Engineering team within Azure AI organization is at the forefront of empowering developers to build advanced agentic AI capabilities into their applications. By leveraging the latest GPT models, tools, and knowledge, we enable the rapid creation of customized, stateful AI agents grounded in enterprise data, capable of handling a wide array of tasks.

We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer who is excited about building, operationalizing, and delivering highly scalable AI backend services with enterprise-grade features. In this role, you will have the opportunity to shape the future of AI technology and make a significant impact on our customers.

Microsoft is a company where passionate innovators come to collaborate, envision what can be and take their careers further. This is a world of more possibilities, more innovation, more openness, and the sky is the limit thinking in a cloud-enabled world.

We do not just value differences or different perspectives. We seek them out and invite them in so we can tap into the collective power of everyone in the company. As a result, our customers are better served.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or related technical discipline AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
  •  OR equivalent experience.
• 4+ years experience building backend services on cloud platforms like Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud.
• 6+ years experience with coding in C# or Python.

Other Requirements:

• Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience building large-scale, distributed, fault-tolerant distributed cloud/backend services
• Prior experience in generative AI.
• Deep understanding of cloud technologies, distributed compute systems, and distributed systems and microservices architecture
• Self-motivation and a drive to get things to “done”.
• System design, algorithmic skills, and knowledge of data structures​.  
• Proficiency in Agile development practices and Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)
• Debugging, testing, and problem-solving skills.  

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $137,600 - $267,000 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $180,400 - $294,000 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until January 22, 2025.

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• Design, develop, and operationalize deployment of complex, enterprise-grade cloud services that leverage multiple Azure Services (Kubernetes, Containers Apps, Azure Storage, AI Search, CosmosDB, and Event Hubs, etc).
• Be responsible for the end-to-end lifecycle of these services, ensuring their scalability, reliability, and security.
• Collaborate with your peers to craft, develop, test, and maintain services and features using your deep technical expertise, problem-solving skills, and a strong understanding for cloud-based service development and operations. 
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including software engineers, researchers, UX design, and product managers.  
• Lead discussions on the architecture of products or solutions and apply engineering principles to establish robust and maintainable architecture and designs.
• Lead by example by producing extensible and maintainable code, adhering to best engineering practices, raising the quality bar, and improving the team's response to customer incidents.

Other:

• Embody our and