Principal Software Engineer - AI Systems Observability
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 8, 2026. First seen by Alion on Sep 23, 2026. Microsoft scores B on the Alion truth index.
Help shape how intelligent agents understand and operate the systems that power the cloud. On the Azure Core Upstream Observability team, you will build and contribute to open-source technologies that make Kubernetes and Linux environments easier to understand, diagnose, and operate. You will work with engineers, product managers, partner teams, and upstream communities to advance reliable, secure, and efficient observability capabilities. You will help the team turn emerging agentic-system opportunities into practical capabilities grounded in rich systems telemetry.
As a Principal Software Engineer, you will set technical direction and lead the design and delivery of agentic observability capabilities across Kubernetes and Linux. You will turn evolving customer, partner, and operational needs into coherent architectures and production-quality solutions while remaining hands-on in implementation, review, and operational excellence. You will connect work across organizational boundaries and support engineers and teams in delivering dependable, maintainable capabilities with measurable outcomes.
This opportunity will allow you to deepen your proficiency in safe, observable, and evaluable agentic systems. Expand your technical leadership across Kubernetes, Linux, and cloud-scale distributed systems. Strengthen your ability to shape strategy and support engineering outcomes across teams and open-source communities.
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
- Partner with appropriate stakeholders to determine user requirements for agentic observability scenarios across Kubernetes and Linux environments.
- Lead identification of dependencies and development of design documents for products, applications, services, or platforms that support safe, observable, and evaluable agentic workflows.
- Lead by example and mentor others to produce extensible and maintainable code used across products, including hands-on implementation, review, testing, debugging, and maintenance.
- Use proficiency in cross-product features to work cooperatively with appropriate stakeholders, including product managers, and drive project plans, release plans, and work items across multiple groups.
- Apply Kubernetes and Linux proficiency to collect, correlate, and interpret systems signals, using Linux kernel and extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) techniques when they are the appropriate engineering choice.
- Be responsible as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI), support engineers across products and solutions, and participate in on-call work to monitor systems, products, and services for degradation, downtime, or interruptions.
- Proactively seek new knowledge and adapt to trends, technical solutions, and patterns that improve availability, reliability, efficiency, observability, and performance while supporting consistent monitoring and operations at scale and sharing knowledge with other engineers.
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++, Go, Python, or Rust
- 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++, Go, Python, or Rust
- 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++, Go, Python, or Rust
- OR equivalent experience.
- Experience designing and operating at least one production Kubernetes/Linux observability or distributed-systems capability, including telemetry, incident response, and rollout or rollback.
- Experience builing or operating at least one tool-using AI-agent system in production or a production-like environment, with a documented evaluation set and auditable approval or safety controls.
- Experience leading adoption of a shared technical architecture by at least two engineering teams, or authored a design/change accepted by an upstream open-source project.
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:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
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.