Principal Software Engineer - AI and Search Platform Team

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the world, and the best is yet to come! At Microsoft AI, we are at the forefront of enhancing AI capabilities and making them accessible to everyone. In this exciting project within the AI and Search team, you will build a platform to provide Large Language Models (LLMs) with up-to-date information from the web to reduce hallucinations, allow answering questions beyond the training data and increase users confidence by returning links that confirm the model's answer.

Our team of engineers is dedicated to working on the latest technological trends in Search, AI, Agents, responsible AI, security, and privacy. We strive to take the best ideas and turn them into innovative business strategies and products.

We are seeking a highly skilled, motivated Principal Software Engineer to evangelize and build APIs that power the agentic web. In this role, you will drive customer focused feature development, onboard partners, and support strategic relationships in a fast-paced environment while maintaining high energy, professionalism, and a passion for innovation.

The ideal candidate will have technical expertise across the full product lifecycle, preferably in platforms, APIs, and schemas, combined with solid partnership, collaboration, and agile project management skills. In this role, you will be responsible for designing, developing, and deploying products and services to address complex business challenges. The candidate must understand customer technical requirements, quickly collaborate with partners to determine how best to leverage our systems, and translate those requirements into solutions demonstrating thought leadership with others in the engineering team. They should be data-driven, able to work independently, remove obstacles, embrace change, and thrive in ambiguous environments. A high level of integrity and a consistent, positive "can-do" attitude are essential, along with the ability to maintain confidentiality of highly sensitive information.

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.

Starting January 26, 2026, Microsoft AI (MAI) employees who live within a 50- mile commute of a designated Microsoft office in the U.S. or 25-mile commute of a non-U.S., country-specific location are expected to work from the office at least four days per week. This expectation is subject to local law and may vary by jurisdiction.

Responsibilities:

• Work on the delivery of high-quality services that will power AI and Search experiences across products.
• Ensure the quality, scalability, reliability, security, and maintainability of services.
• Participate in design and code reviews, and contribute to the development of a clean, well-documented codebase.
• Stay current with the latest developments in AI, Search and development, and bring innovative ideas and insights to the team.
• Help other team members plan and execute technical deliverables with the required quality.
• Participate in the success of internal and external partner relationships.
• Coordinate and orchestrate product requirements gathered from partners.

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.
• 4+ years' experience with API platform development.
• 4 + years' experience building scalable services on top of cloud infrastructure like Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud Platform.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Ability to rapidly prototype and build functional demos based on customer requirements, leveraging our platform and services to showcase practical, high-impact solutions.
• Expertise in backend technologies such as .NET, relational and/or non-relational (NoSQL) databases, web services and RESTful concepts. Expertise in Web technologies is a plus.
• Familiarity with cloud computing platforms such as Azure, AWS, etc.
• Experience operating, troubleshooting, and supporting high performance and business critical production systems.
• Solid communication skills including the ability to distill information into concise communication materials, ability to tailor language and detail the audience, and use of multiple communication mediums to distribute information.
• Unrelenting focus on driving results through transformational partner experiences.
• Passion for continuous learning and applying learning in ways that drive business improvements.
• Solid coding, debugging and algorithm design skills.
• Ability to take strategic thinking to tactical execution.
• Consistent history of successfully leading complex, cross-organizational initiatives
  
  simultaneously.
• Keen ability to forge solid and positive relationships across organizations and levels.
• Self- starter who can work independently and manage confidentiality.
• Commitment to creating and maintaining an inclusive workplace.

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: y

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until November 17, 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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