Principal Software Engineer

Overview

Do you describe yourself as an explorer, builder, and lifelong learner who thinks collaboratively and has a solid technical background as a software developer? We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer who embraces these roles on Experimentation and Configuration Service (ECS) in Microsoft 365 (M365). ECS provides a powerful Configuration Management Platform that enables safe and quick reconfiguration of service or client software without requiring redeployment. This platform supports configurations driven by multiple factors, including A|B experiments, feature rollouts, live-site mitigations, and telemetry toggling or sampling. We are looking for a passionate software engineer to help us with the adoption of new technologies, add features and continue to improve quality and resilience for different scenarios. As you take on these technical challenges, you have access to technical subject matter experts, world-class engineers and architects for guidance. These projects provide plenty of technical challenges and career growth opportunities. The team is globally distributed across different regions.

This position is based in Redmond, Washington and requires the employee be in the office a minimum of 3 days per week.

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 high quality components using clean and tested code.
• Integrate Azure technologies to achieve high resilience and reliability.
• Lead architecture, design, and develop features and solutions with high quality.
• Design, implement, and refine chosen solutions in close partnership with Product Management and partner teams.
• Review and contribute to the specifications and implementations written by other team members.
• Provide technical leadership across features, projects, service fundamentals, and tools.
• Provide support to online services by investigating and mitigating issues.

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.

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:

• 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, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
  • 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, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
  • OR equivalent experience.
• Experience applying AI-assisted development, operational intelligence, or automated diagnostics to improve engineering effectiveness.
• Familiarity with data-driven service health analysis, anomaly detection, and proactive risk identification.
• Experience building or operating deployment, configuration, orchestration, or release management systems at hyperscale.
• Deep understanding of safe deployment strategies, progressive rollouts, ring-based deployment models, and rollback mechanisms.
• Experience with large-scale configuration distribution, service dependency management, and platform governance.

#M365Core

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $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:
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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.