{"id":1311425,"url":"https://alion.io/job/microsoft-principal-software-engineer-8","title":"Principal Software Engineer","company":{"id":18,"name":"Microsoft","domain":"microsoft.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/microsoft","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Eightfold","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":59,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-10-07T05:47:15Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Zurich, Switzerland"],"countries":["CH"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":183800,"max":309700,"currency":"CHF","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":373909},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":12,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"C#","optional":false},{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"Copilot","optional":false},{"name":"GitHub","optional":false},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-15T19:33:47Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-23","last_verified_at":"2026-10-07T23:48:13Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":22,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":22},"description":"OverviewVisual Studio Code is where millions of developers turn ideas into working software. We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer in Zurich to tackle hard product and platform challenges as VS Code and GitHub Copilot continue to reshape how developers build software.\nYou will help to evolve VS Code as a market leading developer environment, seamlessly connecting its editor, agentic coding abilities, platform and extension ecosystem. You will identify where investment matters, prove difficult ideas in code, and establish approaches that multiple teams can build on. This is hands-on technical leadership: the opportunity to change both what developers can accomplish and what our engineering teams can deliver.\nAbout the team\nWe work in the open, with direct feedback from developers and extension authors. You will partner with engineers, designers, researchers, and product leaders across our team, GitHub, and Microsoft. We combine community feedback, research, experiments, and engineering judgment to decide what to build. Performance, accessibility, extensibility, security, and developer control are part of the product, not finishing touches.\nExamples of work\nThe role spans core VS Code and Copilot; illustrative projects include:\nAddress architectural bottlenecks in large workspaces, proving an approach in code that multiple feature teams can adopt.\nDefine extension or workspace APIs that unlock new capabilities while preserving compatibility with existing extensions and remote development environments.\nPrototype how developers delegate, review, and validate work with Copilot, then establish the product and platform boundaries needed to ship it.\nReshape and support our engineering process with custom solutions fine-tuned for throughput and quality.\nResponsibilities\nIdentify significant product opportunities and systemic engineering problems; set technical direction that balances near-term delivery with long-term product and platform health.\nProve approaches through prototypes, critical implementation, testing, and difficult debugging, using hands-on work to guide architectural decisions.\nLead cross-team delivery across Microsoft and GitHub, resolving architectural disagreements, clarifying ownership and API boundaries, and enabling teams to deliver independently.\nOwn outcomes beyond release, using adoption, quality signals, evaluations, experiments, and user feedback to guide investment and adjust course.\nImprove engineering effectiveness across teams through testing strategies, performance work, shared design patterns, and tools for rapid, reliable experimentation.\nLead technical discussions in the open, investigate community-reported issues, and work directly with developers and extension authors to shape designs.\nMentor experienced engineers and technical leaders, helping them develop judgment and take ownership without making yourself a bottleneck.\nQualifications\nBasic Qualifications\nBachelor'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.\nDemonstrated technical leadership across multiple teams, including setting direction, building alignment, and delivering substantial initiatives without relying on reporting-line authority.\nSolid hands-on coding and design skills, with the ability to become productive in large TypeScript and Rust codebases.\nExperience designing shared platforms, APIs, or large application architectures, with sound judgment about extensibility, compatibility, performance, and maintainability.\nSolid product judgment, including identifying opportunities, setting priorities amid ambiguity, and turning technical decisions into practical designs and measurable improvements for users.\nA track record of mentoring experienced engineers and improving the effectiveness of teams beyond your immediate area.\nClear communication skills, including explaining complex technical decisions and navigating tradeoffs with engineering and product partners.\nPreferred Qualifications\nWe welcome a range of product backgrounds; these are helpful experiences, not a checklist. Previous work on developer tools, open-source projects, or AI products is not required.\nMaster'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.\nExperience with TypeScript, JavaScript and Rust.\nExperience evolving interactive products with attention to usability and accessibility.\nExperience guiding cross-platform architecture, performance improvements, or major migrations in a large application.\nExperience establishing experimentation and feedback practices that connect engineering decisions to user outcomes.\nPractical familiarity with AI coding tools and sound judgment about where they help, where they fall short, and how they change development workflows.\nExperience providing technical leadership on AI-powered products, open-source projects, or extensible applications.\nProduct and open source\nhttps://code.visualstudio.com\nhttps://github.com/microsoft/vscode\nOther requirements\nAbility 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:\nMicrosoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.\nMicrosoft 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.\nBenefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.\nSoftware Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across Switzerland is CHF 183,800.00 - CHF 309,700.00 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.\nFind additional benefits and pay information here:\nhttps://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/corporate-pay/switzerland-corporate-pay.html\nThis position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.\nMicrosoft 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.","description_format":"text","description_chars":8036,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":12,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"Switzerland","iso":"CH","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Console Games","Cloud Platforms (IaaS & PaaS)","Gaming Consoles","Developer Tools"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-26T16:29:11Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":20,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.36,"p_room":0.55,"age_days":21,"expected_fill_days":20,"reasons":["conf:2","stale_co","evergreen","wave","velocity","win:tail","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-07T05:47:15Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":373909,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/microsoft-principal-software-engineer-8","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/microsoft-principal-software-engineer-8.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-08T00:49:16Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":1330,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":3670,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-09T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":18},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=18"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fmicrosoft-principal-software-engineer-8"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fmicrosoft-principal-software-engineer-8"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fmicrosoft-principal-software-engineer-8"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/microsoft-principal-software-engineer-8\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fmicrosoft-principal-software-engineer-8"}]}