Microsoft
Principal Software Engineer - VS Code (GitHub - CoreAI)
$143K–$304K
Redmond, WA · On-site · Principal · Full-time · Posted Oct 16, 2026
- Experience
- 6+ years required; 10+ years preferred.
- Education
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field, or equivalent experience.
About the job
Provides hands-on technical leadership to evolve VS Code and GitHub Copilot, shaping product and platform architecture and enabling teams to deliver improvements for developers.
What you'll do
- Set technical direction and prove architectural approaches through prototypes, implementation, testing, and debugging.
- Lead cross-team delivery and improve engineering effectiveness through shared patterns, testing strategies, performance work, and tools.
- Guide product decisions using adoption, quality signals, experiments, and developer feedback; mentor senior engineers.
What they ask for
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field and 6+ years of technical engineering experience coding in languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, or RUST, or equivalent experience.
- Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements, including the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years.
Nice to have
- 10+ years of software engineering experience architecting, delivering, and evolving complex production software.
- Experience with TypeScript, JavaScript and Rust; developer tools, AI products, open-source projects, or extensible applications are helpful, not required.
Pay
USD $142,800 - $274,800 per year (base salary); USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year (base salary)
Tools
VS Code, GitHub Copilot, JavaScript, TypeScript, RUST, Rust
AI focus
Prototypes and shapes Copilot agentic coding experiences, including how developers delegate, review, and validate work; preferred experience includes practical familiarity with AI coding tools and technical leadership on AI-powered products.
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative