Principal Software Engineer

Windows 365 Cloud PC (W365) and Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) have consistently been recognized as leaders in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Desktop as a Service (DaaS). At its core, W365 and AVD provide business customers a modern, elastic, cloud-based Windows experience, and the ability to stay current in a simplistic and scalable manner. The Windows Cloud team is looking for a Principal Software Engineer who will help take the Windows Cloud platform, as well as the Windows 365 Cloud PC and Azure Virtual Desktop business to the next level.

As a Principal Software Engineer in the W365 and AVD team, you will get an amazing opportunity to demonstrate leadership at both business and technology level. You will get to extend your knowledge of cloud computing, desktop virtualization, streaming technologies, and other technical areas including cloud-based management suites. You will be part of a team designing new platform capabilities involving virtualized compute, storage, networking, GPUs (Graphic Processing Units), core connectivity services and streaming protocols (such as RDP - Remote Desktop Protocol) for our products to enhance the value to our customer base.

You will design and implement software components to enable andoptimizethe Windows 365 Cloud PC (W365) and Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) service backend. You will help build cloud infrastructure services at scale to enable feature teams to increase the velocity at which they can safely deploy changes to production and monitor the effects of changes across the footprint.You will also analyze telemetry data to develop capacity planning models, identify patterns and trends that drive continuous improvement, and highlight opportunities to deploy automation to monitor and manage Windows Cloud services across sites.

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:

• Design, develop, and deliver the required software engineering that reduce operational burden by automating complex and repetitive tasks such as onboarding of system capabilities to newer data centers and upkeep of system capabilities in the existing sites.
• Own deployment, availability, reliability, performance and customer escalation targets for WCX Production and Pre-production environments.
• Proactively identify and reduce issues through design, testing, and implementation of software-based solutions.
• Collaborate with Engineering and Product Management partners to translate customer, business, and technical requirements into architectural designs and feature releases.
• Drive efficiencies through software improvement and root cause analysis resulting in service delivery, maturity, and scalability.
• Drive continuous improvement on service quality and COGS (Cost of Good Sold) efficiency .
• Work within a highly skilled team of engineers t o deliver revolutionary improvements to the system and scale them.

Qualifications:

Required 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.
• 5+ years of experience as a software engineer designing, implementing, and shipping cloud services or software products.
• Experience with Infrastructure As Code (IaC) tools and practices, such as Terraform or Ansible.
• Experience setting up and managing Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines using tools like Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or Azure DevOps.
• Experience applying Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles and practices to ensure system reliability, scalability, and performance.

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:

• 6 + years of experience with distributed systems delivering large-scale, secure, and resilient cloud services.
• Demonstrated communication and collaboration skills.
• Broad experience and track record of working across teams to deliver shared solutions to complex problems.

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $137,600 - $267,000 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 $180,400 - $294,000 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 May 23, 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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