Principal Software Engineer

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join the Infrastructure and Developer Platform (IDP) team within Microsoft Security, which plays a pivotal role in supporting the Defender suite by providing a foundational platform that simplifies service deployment, enhances security, and reduces operational costs. Positioned at the intersection of C#/.NET SDK development and Kubernetes, this role is instrumental in enabling AI-driven development workflows across the Microsoft Threat Protection (MTP) organization. By streamlining infrastructure and developer tools, the IDP team empowers engineers to build and scale services more efficiently and reliably.

The Infrastructure and Developer Platform (IDP) team is a cornerstone of Microsoft's security strategy, delivering the essential infrastructure that powers the Defender product suite. By offering robust tools and frameworks, IDP enables engineering teams to innovate rapidly while ensuring secure, reliable, and cost-effective service deployment. Leveraging cutting-edge technologies and best practices, the platform supports seamless operations and global protection for millions of users, reinforcing Microsoft's leadership in cybersecurity.

You'll help shape and deliver the paved path for secure, observable, and scalable .NET workloads on Kubernetes by:

• Designing SDKs and platform APIs that make secure defaults and best practices the path of least resistance.
• Enabling AI-assisted developer experiences (code generation, linters, templates, PR automation) that increase velocity and reduce toil.
• Driving adoption through hands-on dev work plus tech talks, brown bags, and onboarding that scale best practices across Microsoft Security.

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.

Responsibilities:

• Lead cross-team technical strategy and execution, defining architectural direction and ensuring alignment across multiple product and platform teams.
• Enable the paved path: partner with product and platform teams to publish patterns, reference implementations, and guardrails; measure adoption and impact.
• Own architecture and cross-team design for developer workflows (templates, CLI/VS extensions, GitOps, pipelines) that embed security, telemetry, and compliance by default.
• Design & implement core SDKs, libraries, and platform integrations (C#/.NET) that standardize how teams build, test, and ship on Kubernetes.
• Accelerate AI-driven workflows: prototype and productionize AI assistants, code generators, and automation that reduce friction in the dev loop.
• Developer advocacy: lead tech talks, brown bags, and onboarding sessions; create docs, samples, and internal tutorials that lower the bar for secure Kubernetes development.
• Ship with quality: drive testability, observability, safe rollout, and incident readiness for platform components and SDKs.
• Cross-org influence: collaborate with security, compliance, and platform teams to align on standards (e.g., policy, identity, supply chain security) and scale best practices.
• Solve complex, ambiguous engineering challenges at global scale, delivering secure and reliable solutions that impact millions of users.

Qualifications:

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# or Java.
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 4+ years of experience working with Kubernetes OR managing distributed systems in production.

Microsoft Cloud Background Check : 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.

Additional or preferred qualifications

• Master'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# or Java.
  • OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C# or Java.
  • OR equivalent experience.
• Proven ability to design and ship developer tooling/workflows (CLI, templates, CI/CD, GitOps, policy as code).
• Experience applying security, observability, and reliability patterns to cloud-native workloads (e.g., RBAC, network policy, workload identity, telemetry).
• Expertise with Azure ecosystem and associated developer tools (AKS, Azure DevOps/GitHub Actions, Visual Studio Code, etc).
• Deep experience with infrastructure as code on Azure-using Terraform, Pulumi, CAPZ (Cluster API Provider for Azure), and Azure Service Operator to define, provision, and manage cloud-native infrastructure declaratively.
• Experience building and using AI-assisted developer tools-from code generation and intelligent linting to automated PR workflows and LLM-powered feedback loops that accelerate development.

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $139,900 - $274,800 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 $188,000 - $304,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: ;br>
Microsoft will accept applications for the role until November 18, 2025.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form .

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

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