Principal Software Engineer--M365 Directory team
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 21, 2026. First seen by Alion on Oct 15, 2026. Microsoft scores B on the Alion truth index.
Are you excited by the challenge of reinventing the core directory services that support Microsoft’s global datacenter operations? The Datacenter Config Directory team leads the way in simplifying and modernizing directory infrastructure, with a mission to deliver secure, reliable, and high-performance solutions at cloud scale. Our team’s scope includes maintaining legacy Active Directory (AD), advancing directory simplification and modernization and intelligent monitoring powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
As a Principal Software Enginee r, you will architect and lead the team to innovative systems that drive operational excellence and resilience for mission-critical workloads. You’ll collaborate with talented engineers and cross-functional partners to streamline configuration management, enhance resiliency, and set new standards for automation and reliability in the cloud era.
At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. We foster a culture of curiosity, collaboration, and continuous learning-grounded in our core values of respect, integrity, and accountability. Here, you’ll find opportunities to grow, make a global impact, and thrive in an inclusive environment where your contributions matter.
Responsibilities
Guides partnership with appropriate stakeholders (e.g., project manager, technical lead) to determine user requirements within and across teams.
Guides teams and leads identification of dependencies and the development of design documents for a product, application, service, or platform.
Optimizes, debugs, refactors, and reuses code to improve performance and maintainability, effectiveness, and return on investment (ROI).
Guides team to drive multiple group's project plans, release plans, and work items in coordination with appropriate stakeholders (e.g., project managers).
Guides team and acts as an expert for Designated Responsible Individual (DRI) and monitors other engineers across product lines, working on call to monitor.
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.
- Demonstrated technical leadership, with the ability to establish technical direction, drive alignment across teams, mentor engineers, and lead complex initiatives from design through production delivery.
- Experience designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems, cloud services, databases, or data-intensive platforms.
- Experience leading technically complex projects across multiple engineering teams, including architecture, dependency management, implementation, validation, deployment, and production operation.
- Demonstrated ability to reason about system performance, scalability, availability, consistency, fault tolerance, and disaster recovery.
- Experience delivering production software with strong security, privacy, testing, observability, and operational-quality practices.
- Ability to effectively use AI-assisted engineering tools and techniques to investigate and resolve complex technical problems while independently validating correctness, reliability, security, and overall engineering quality.
- Experience designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems and database with a strong focus on system performance, scalability, and reliability.
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.