Principal Software Engineer

With the continued advancement of breakthrough artificial intelligence models, the Azure Core team is expanding to deliver the foundational platform that will support the next generation of artificial intelligence workloads. The team is hiring experienced engineers to join agile engineering groups within the Host Networking and Hardware Acceleration team.

As a Principal Software Engineer in this team, you will contribute to Azure's host networking infrastructure by designing and deploying agents that integrate hardware and software components to deliver reliable and high-performance networking across current and future Azure hosts. You will also develop servicing software for Network Interface Cards to support artificial intelligence and other Azure workloads.

This role offers the opportunity to deepen expertise in service-oriented architecture, distributed systems, low-level programming, operating system internals, virtualization, large-scale infrastructure, performance optimization, hardware offloading, and testing methodologies. The team supports flexible work arrangements, including remote and hybrid models, and values collaboration, technical excellence, and impact across one of the most critical services in the cloud.

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:

• Collaborates with appropriate stakeholders to determine user requirements for a scenario.
• Drives identification of dependencies and the development of design documents for a product, application, service, or platform.
• Creates, implements, optimizes, debugs, refactors, and reuses code to establish and improve performance and maintainability, effectiveness, and return on investment (ROI).
• Leverages subject-matter expertise of product features and partners with appropriate stakeholders (e.g., project managers) to drive a workgroup's project plans, release plans, and work items.
• Acts as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI) and guides other engineers by developing and following the playbook, working on call to monitor system/product/service for degradation, downtime, or interruptions, alerting stakeholders about status and initiates actions to restore system/product/service for simple and complex problems when appropriate.
• Proactively seeks new knowledge and adapts to new trends, technical solutions, and patterns that will improve the availability, reliability, efficiency, observability, and performance of products while also driving consistency in monitoring and operations at scale.

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, Rust, C++, or Python
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 6+ years of experience working in low level systems development (Ex. networking, drivers, etc.)

Other Qualifications:

• 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:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
  • OR related technical field AND 10+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, Rust, C++, OR Python
  • OR 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, Rust, C++, OR Python
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 1+ year(s) experience with virtualization and networking technologies, including:
  • Hyper-V, Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), VMware, and Network Interface Card (NIC) hardware offloads.
  • Microservices, service-oriented architecture, and distributed systems.
  • Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) practices.
• 1+ year(s) experience designing scalable systems with a focus on performance, reliability, and maintainability in cloud environments.

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 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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