Principal Software Engineering Manager
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Sep 26, 2026. First seen by Alion on Sep 22, 2026.
We are the Microsoft Copilot extensibility service that powers AI agents and apps across Cowork, Admin, Outlook, Azure, Teams, Office, Copilot Chat, Microsoft Edge, and Word/Excel/PowerPoint. If you use AI at Microsoft you likely are working with our service. Come join us at the center of AI transformation at Microsoft!
As a Principal Software Engineering Manager in the M365 platform team you will manager a team of very highly motivated engineers with a wide variety of experience and background. Your job is to help them achieve their best, increase our AI adoption and agentic dev loops, and maximize our impact. We have a presence in data centers globally, and that reach means 24/7 on-call service.
This position is based in Redmond, Washington and requires the employee be in the office a minimum of 3 days per week.
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
Lead disciplined use and improvement of artificial intelligence (AI) tools throughout the software development lifecycle, ensuring Responsible AI practices and guiding experimentation to improve AI capabilities and adoption and fully agentic loops.
Guide and review complex architecture and design decisions for high-scale systems, ensuring solutions meet performance, scalability, resiliency, security, and cost requirements, while leveraging open-source and managed services.
Lead efforts to produce extensible, maintainable, secure, well-tested, and performant code; continuously improve code quality, performance, and reliability at scale, incorporating AI-assisted coding where appropriate.
Coach and lead teams in creating and executing comprehensive validation strategies including security testing, leveraging AI for test automation and improving test suite reliability and scalability.
Drive engineering excellence by establishing and sharing best practices for secure design principles, scaling customer requirements, and proactively integrating telemetry for monitoring system health and security.
Lead collaboration across teams to identify and manage dependencies, coordinate schedules, resolve conflicts, and align on delivery milestones ensuring seamless integration and operation at scale.
Mentor and develop team members to ensure their technical skills remain current, fostering a culture of learning, innovation, and adherence to engineering health metrics.
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.
- 4+ years people management experience.
- 4+ years of Azure services expertise.
- Understanding of modern AI technologies, including generative AI, foundation models, and AI-powered systems, with the ability to apply AI concepts to real-world engineering challenges.
- Experience designing or building agentic systems and agentic loops, including systems that can reason, plan, take actions, use tools, and iteratively respond to results.
- Experience managing teams of 10+ engineers, including providing technical direction, developing engineering talent, and driving execution across complex initiatives.
Software Engineering M5 - 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.