Microsoft
Principal Software Engineering Manager-CoreAI
$166K–$331K
Redmond, WA · On-site · Principal · Full-time · Posted Jul 22, 2026
- Experience
- 8+ years required; alternative experience paths stated: Master’s plus 12+ years, or Bachelor’s plus 15+ years, or equivalent experience. Preferred: 6+ years as a people manager; other preferred experience durations are stated in the qualifications.
- Education
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field OR equivalent experience.
About the job
Leads an engineering team building SDKs, interfaces, and agentic experiences that help developers and enterprises build, deploy, and operate AI applications.
What you'll do
- Lead, grow, and coach engineers; set team technical and product direction.
- Establish goals, decision-making and execution practices, and align engineering work with customer needs and business priorities.
- Promote AI-first engineering, customer-driven platform improvements, and live-site health and incident response.
What they ask for
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.
- Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements, including the Microsoft Cloud Background Check.
- Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience, or Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 15+ years technical engineering experience, or equivalent experience.
- 6+ years of experience as a people manager.
Nice to have
- 5+ years of technical leadership defining and building developer experiences and scalable systems, preferably in Generative AI or Machine Learning.
- 10+ years shipping software products; experience with JavaScript, React, Python, .NET, C#, or similar; cross-functional distributed-team leadership; or production customer-facing software delivery.
Pay
USD $165,600 - $296,400 per year (base salary); USD $220,800 - $331,200 per year (base salary)
Tools
C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Python, React, .NET
AI focus
Leads development of generative AI platform experiences, SDKs, and agentic capabilities; coaches AI-first engineering and use of AI to build AI systems.
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative