Principal Software Engineering Manager

On the M365 Copilot Evaluation Platform Team, you’ll work at the center of how AI impacts millions of users and help steer one of Microsoft’s most important efforts forward, taking our evaluation system to the next level by allowing our teams, partners and customers understand what “Good AI” means.  

The Copilot Evaluation Platform provides the foundational infrastructure that enables teams to learn safely before shipping and to make confident, data‑driven decisions about AI experiences at scale. As Copilot expands across scenarios, modalities, and partners, the cost of shipping without strong evaluation increases significantly. This platform exists to ensure that quality, reliability, and user trust are treated as first‑class engineering concerns.  

We are hiring a highly technical and hands-on Engineering Manager to lead a team working on the Copilot Shadow Experimentation. In this role you will guide, grow, and support your engineers while setting technical direction and delivery for the team. The ideal leader has experience managing and developing engineering teams, along with a background of designing, implementing and operating high-scale cloud services. You can quickly diagnose and resolve problems across complex services and drive scalability principles across every tier of the platform. Proficiency with AI and agentic technologies is a must. 

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.

As a Principal Software Engineering Manager on the Evaluation Platform Team, you will be responsible for managing a team and owning some of the core systems that evaluate AI quality, safety, and impact across Copilot experiences used by millions of users.  

The core responsibilities include: 

• Manage, coach, and support a team of individual contributors on the Copilot Shadow Experimentation platform 

• Grow the team by developing engineers into independent senior and principal contributors. 

• Create clarity for the team by setting the right priorities and engineering direction for evolving the platform. 

• Apply high-scale design principles across every tier of the service, ensuring agility and reliability. 

• Quickly diagnose and drive resolution of problems across a complex, distributed service ensuring high reliability. 

• Set technical direction and delivery for the team 

• AI-Native Development – Provide practical technical leadership on the disciplined use of, and improving artificial intelligence (AI) tools and practices across the software development lifecycle (SDLC). 

• Lead team on experimenting with AI tools and practices to improve efficiency and productivity 

• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field
• Experience in backend, distributed systems, platform, infrastructure, or developer productivity engineering.
• Experience building scalable, reliable, and maintainable services and platforms.
• Experience using data and operational metrics to inform engineering decisions.
• Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced and evolving environment.
• Demonstrated ownership and accountability in delivering results.