Principal Software Engineer - Backend/Fullstack

People & Work Intelligence (PWI) is building the intelligence layer that helps Microsoft 365 understand what work people do, what skills they possess, and how AI can accelerate workforce transformation. Our platform powers experiences across Microsoft 365 Copilot, Workforce Intelligence, Learning, Skills, Tasks, and organizational insights, enabling AI-driven decision making for individuals, managers, and enterprise leaders.

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to provide deep technical leadership across PWI's intelligence, inferencing, platform, and agentic systems investments. This role is ideal for a hands-on technical leader who enjoys solving complex distributed systems challenges, building AI-native platforms, and influencing product and engineering strategy across multiple organizations.

As a Principal Engineer, you will drive architecture and execution for large-scale intelligence platforms that process signals from Microsoft 365, generate actionable insights, and power next-generation Copilot experiences. You will work closely with engineering, product management, data science, research, and platform teams to define long-term technical direction, simplify highly ambiguous problem spaces, and deliver systems that operate reliably at enterprise scale.

Success in this role requires a combination of technical excellence, product intuition, strategic thinking, and the ability to influence outcomes across organizational boundaries. You will be expected to raise the engineering quality bar, mentor senior engineers, champion AI-first development practices, and help shape the future of People & Work Intelligence across Microsoft.

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.

• Define and drive the technical vision, architecture, and multi-year roadmap for People & Work Intelligence platform investments.
• Lead the design and implementation of large-scale distributed systems that power skills intelligence, work intelligence, inferencing, analytics, and Copilot experiences.
• Architect AI-native solutions leveraging LLMs, agent orchestration frameworks, retrieval systems, memory systems, knowledge graphs, and intelligence pipelines.
• Drive technical strategy for signal processing, enrichment, contextual intelligence, recommendations, and enterprise-scale insight generation.
• Partner with product leaders, data scientists, researchers, and engineering teams to translate business and customer needs into scalable technical solutions.
• Influence architecture, engineering standards, security practices, privacy compliance, and operational excellence across multiple teams and organizations.
• Lead complex cross-team initiatives involving platform modernization, reliability improvements, performance optimization, scalability, and cost efficiency.
• Establish engineering best practices around agentic development, AI-assisted software engineering, observability, testing, deployment automation, and service health.
• Mentor and grow senior engineers and technical leads through coaching, design reviews, technical guidance, and architectural leadership.
• Drive resolution of highly ambiguous technical challenges and make principled tradeoffs across quality, velocity, reliability, security, privacy, and cost.
• Champion a culture of innovation, customer obsession, accountability, and continuous improvement while helping the organization adopt modern AI-first engineering practices.
• Act as a technical representative for PWI across Microsoft, influencing platform direction, partner integrations, and future intelligence capabilities that power Microsoft 365 experiences.

Required/Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field 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.

Additional or preferred qualifications

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:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
• 12+ years of software engineering experience building cloud-scale distributed systems.
• Solid experience with C#, Java, Python, or comparable languages.
• Proven experience designing large-scale platform services, APIs, and data-intensive systems.
• Experience with AI/ML platforms, LLM orchestration, RAG, agent frameworks, or intelligent systems.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, reliability, observability, security, privacy, and cloud architecture.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction beyond immediate team boundaries.
• Solid communication, collaboration, and leadership skills.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction and drive alignment across multiple teams, organizations, and disciplines without direct authority.
• Solid customer obsession with a proven track record of translating ambiguous customer or business challenges into scalable engineering solutions.
• Growth mindset with a passion for continuous learning, innovation, and adoption of emerging AI technologies.
• Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to engineers, product leaders, and executive stakeholders.
• Proven ability to balance long-term platform investments with short-term business priorities and product commitments.
• Experience driving high-agency engineering culture, fostering accountability, ownership, and operational excellence across teams.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity, evaluate tradeoffs, and make sound decisions in rapidly evolving technology environments.
• Passion for mentoring and developing engineers through technical leadership, design guidance, knowledge sharing, and example-setting.
• Track record of identifying opportunities for organizational leverage, engineering efficiency, and AI-powered productivity improvements.
• Ability to represent the team in cross-organizational forums, establish credibility with senior leaders, and advocate for engineering investments that drive customer and business impact.

#CAPIDC

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.