Microsoft
Principal Software Engineer
$143K–$304K
Redmond, WA · On-site · Principal · Full-time · Posted Nov 2, 2026
- Experience
- 6+ years technical engineering experience; preferred alternatives: 8+ years with a Master's Degree, or 12+ years with a Bachelor's Degree, or equivalent experience.
- Education
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field, or equivalent experience.
About the job
Defines technical strategy and builds globally distributed services that manage, protect, and optimize the Dataverse database fleet and compute resources.
What you'll do
- Set multi-year architecture and technical roadmaps for Dataverse fleet-management services, and own critical areas through deployment and long-term operation.
- Lead cross-team initiatives and establish practices for quality, security, compliance, reliability, observability, and safe deployment.
- Mentor engineers, review architecture and code, and improve reusable engineering patterns and standards.
What they ask for
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience coding in listed languages, OR equivalent experience.
- Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements, including passing the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.
Nice to have
- Master's Degree and 8+ years of relevant engineering experience, OR Bachelor's Degree and 12+ years, OR equivalent experience.
- Experience with large-scale production cloud services, SQL and relational databases, scalable resilient event-driven systems, and cross-organizational technical leadership.
Pay
USD $142,800 - $274,800 per year (base salary); USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year (base salary)
Tools
C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Python, SQL
AI focus
Builds intelligent, autonomous services for Dataverse, which underpins Microsoft AI experiences; the role manages database fleet and compute resources rather than directly developing AI models or agents.
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative