Overview:
Microsoft is a company where passionate innovators come to collaborate, envision what can be, and take their careers further. This is a world of more possibilities, more innovation, more openness, and the sky is the limit thinking in a cloud-enabled world.
The CoreAI organization at Microsoft builds the end-to-end AI stack and is core to Azure AI innovation and differentiation, as well as all of Microsoft’s flagship products, from GitHub, to Office, Teams, and Xbox. We are the team building Responsible AI, Azure OpenAI, Model as a Service, Azure ML, Cognitive Services, and the global Azure AI infrastructure for running the largest AI workloads on the planet. We do not just value differences or different perspectives, we seek them out and invite them in so we can tap into the collective power of everyone in the company. As a result, our customers are better served. Within CoreAI, the Foundry team empowers builders around the world of all skill levels to easily create AI apps.
The Responsible AI group focuses on identifying, measuring, mitigating, and monitoring Responsible AI risks in AI-generated and human-generated content spanning text, image, audio, video, and multimodal content. We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer - Responsible AI who is passionate about building customer-facing AI services with scalable and sustainable architecture and implementation and with high performance, low latency, and high availability. In this role, you will work with a unique group of talented engineers, scientists, and product managers to build the industry's best Responsible AI services. You will own the design of new AI services and integration with existing services such as Azure AI Content Safety, Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Studio, and more.
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.
In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.
Responsibilities
Responsibilities:
Design and develop large-scale distributed cloud services and solutions with a focus on high availability, scalability, robustness, and observability.
Lead project development across the organization and work with subject matter experts and stakeholders to drive development and release plans.
Take end-to-end responsibility for the development lifecycle and production readiness of the services you build and drive the team’s DevOps culture.
Drive and uphold the best practices of modern software engineering through code and design reviews and take effective service decisions based on data and telemetry.
Understand Microsoft businesses and collaborate with stakeholders towards cohesive, end-to-end experiences for Microsoft customers.
Embrace a growth mindset and stay up to date with the current and state-of-the-art technologies to improve customer experience and better serve the product’s business needs.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications:
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 4+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
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/Additional Qualifications:
4+ years of technical engineering experience designing and delivering highly available, large-scale cloud services and distributed systems.
2+ years of technical engineering experience with machine learning model development, release, and operations.
Demonstrate depth of knowledge and understanding of software architecture, design tradeoffs, and practices of mature DevOps culture.
Experience using appropriate artificial intelligence (AI) tools and practices across the software development lifecycle (SDLC) in a disciplined manner.
Experience in any one or more of the following areas:
Safety and governance platforms for AI models and agents
Inference, routing, orchestration, and policy enforcement systems
Evaluation, red teaming, and monitoring infrastructure for AI systems
Deployment automation, CI/CD, and compliance tooling (e.g., zero‑manual‑effort deployments)
Multimodal safety infrastructure (image, video, audio, provenance)
Agent governance and control‑plane capabilities
Software Engineering IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800 - $234,700 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $160,200 - $261,000 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
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.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field
- 4+ years technical engineering experience with coding in C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
- Ability to meet Microsoft Cloud background check and related security screening requirements
- 4+ years designing and delivering highly available, large-scale cloud services and distributed systems
- 2+ years experience with machine learning model development, release, and operations
- Depth of knowledge in software architecture, design tradeoffs, and mature DevOps practices
- Experience using AI tools and practices across the software development lifecycle (SDLC)
- Experience with safety and governance platforms for AI models and agents
- Experience with inference, routing, orchestration, and policy enforcement systems
- Experience with evaluation, red teaming, and monitoring infrastructure for AI systems
- Experience with deployment automation, CI/CD, and compliance tooling
- Experience with multimodal safety infrastructure (image, video, audio, provenance)
- Experience with agent governance and control-plane capabilities
Microsoft Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Microsoft and has not been reviewed or approved by Microsoft.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is presented as broadly competitive overall, with clear role/level/location variation and an emphasis on using posted ranges and band information for apples-to-apples comparisons.
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Retirement Support — Retirement benefits are described as a standout, highlighted by a strong 401(k) match structure and immediate vesting, plus additional plan features for tax-advantaged saving.
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Parental & Family Support — Family-oriented benefits are portrayed as a meaningful strength, with substantial paid parental leave and added supports like back-up care and adoption/surrogacy assistance.
Microsoft Insights
What We Do
At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our mission is grounded in both the world in which we live and the future we strive to create. Today, we live in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, and the transformation we are driving across our businesses is designed to enable Microsoft and our customers to thrive in this world.
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