Principal Software Engineer - CoreAI

Our team is the engine behind some of the most impactful Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities in Microsoft Teams-including the real-time interpreter that helps people connect across languages, cultures, and time zones. We're now pioneering a new frontier of meeting intelligence: building agents that listen, respond, and act in real-time based on audio signals. As a Principal Software Engineer you'll collaborate with Teams and Azure AI partners to bring this next wave of innovation to life-where every meeting is more productive, accessible, and intelligent.

You're passionate about pushing the boundaries of how AI transforms human collaboration-and we're building the future of meetings. As a Principal Software Engineer on the Intelligence Meeting Runtime team, you'll be at the core of integrating AI deeply and intelligently into live meeting experiences. This is your opportunity to shape AI-powered agent interactions that impact millions of users on Teams and across Microsoft 365.

As a Principal Software Engineer on this team, you will be the technical leader driving critical architecture decisions, prototyping novel solutions, and delivering production-grade components that power AI agents in meetings. You'll lead cross-team efforts, make strategic trade-offs, and define scalable, high-performance infrastructure that bridges speech, audio, and agent services. You'll grow your skills in cutting-edge areas like real-time audio processing, distributed AI inference, and multi-agent orchestration.

Responsibilities:

• Drive exploration and prototyping in advanced AI and audio interaction technologies; take ownership of end-to-end technical investigation, feasibility analysis, and roadmap development.
• Architect and implement mission-critical components for real-time AI meeting services, including runtime systems, agent orchestration pipelines, and audio interaction modules.
• Serve as a key technical liaison across Microsoft Teams, Azure AI, and other partner groups-aligning architecture, defining standards, and delivering unified, strategic capabilities.
• Lead design reviews, mentor engineers, and champion engineering excellence across the team.
• Continuously improve team velocity by optimizing developer workflows, testing infrastructure, and release pipelines.
• Collaborate with partner teams to meet the engineering goals in a unified manner.

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.
• 6+ years of industry programming, software development, and/or software engineering experience building commercial software products.
• Experience with distributed systems, performance analysis, and/or large-scale data processing
• Experience building natural language processing/artificial intelligence/machine learning (NLP/AI/ML) - powered experiences

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:

• Solid communication skills (both written and oral).
• Ability to prioritize tasks and work independently.
• Experience in building NLP/AI/ML-powered experiences, especially in live scenarios such as meetings, streaming, or voice assistants.
• Familiarity with Azure services, real-time communication protocols, and Microsoft Teams architecture.
• Passion for building inclusive technologies that make meetings more accessible for everyone
• Proven design, implementation, and debugging skills; knowledge of scripting languages a plus.

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 posts positions 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, 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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