Principal Software Engineering Manager
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 18, 2026. First seen by Alion on Aug 27, 2026. Microsoft scores B on the Alion truth index.
Overview
Azure AI Knowledge (Search) is looking for an engineering manager who is passionate about expanding the possibilities of how Search and AI can empower developers in Azure to deliver the next generation experiences. In this role, you'll be part of our long-term strategy to enable capabilities for AI Search in a fast-changing AI landscape. AI Search is Azure's Search-as-a-Service offering that delivers a highly scalable search backend enhanced with AI powered content and query understanding which enables advanced search and knowledge mining scenarios. AI search is at core of LLM revolution enabling RAG workflows for enterprise applications. In your new role you'll be helping us research, design and deliver new product capabilities, building cloud scale distributed systems, designing advanced release tooling, live site infrastructure, and new tooling to support the rapid growth of our global presence.
The Azure AI Search team is highly collaborative, data-oriented, and greatly values diversity of thought and ideas. As a team we have a strong track record of building industrial strength services infused with AI and used by tens of thousands of customers across the world. We are proud of what we build and how we build it and that our product powers numerous applications in this AI era. We run lean, obsess about customers, and use an evidence-based approach to decision making. We ship new bits continuously, so your work will impact customers in a few days, not months or years.
Our team consists of people from a wide variety of backgrounds as well as professional and life experiences. We maintain and grow that diversity what makes us better at building the best solutions for our customers while having a blast doing it! Core to our team culture is the belief that you must have a ‘people-first’ approach to sustainably building and running 24x7 cloud services.
This means we support each other to build things the right way, enjoy our vacation time, and take advantage of our paid parental leave!
Responsibilities
Responsibilities
Build and lead a team of software engineers which includes driving project planning, prioritization of work, and designing features
Support, mentor, and help engineers grow building an inclusive team environment where everyone can deliver their best work
Lead the design and implementation of core search service capabilities that are scalable, highly-available, compliant, and deployed globally
Advocate for and maintain a culture of high-quality software development with focus on efficient DevOps, customer support processes and automation
Analyze telemetry and usage data to inform product decisions and troubleshoot issues
Work with diverse opinions and negotiate solutions balancing customer requirements and business goals
Qualifications
Qualifications
Required Qualifications:
10+ years of programming experience in C# OR Java OR C++ OR object-oriented programming
4+ years of people manager or technical lead experience
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Engineering or Mathematics or Physics or IT technical discipline or 14+ years of experience developing and shipping software products
Preferred Qualifications:
Background or experience in building and designing platform services
Proven track record of forming, mentoring, and growing strong engineering teams
Demonstrated openness to feedback and effectiveness at collaborating with diverse groups of people
Demonstrated independence, bias for action, and tolerance for ambiguity
Excellent organization, prioritization, and communication skills
Experience building and using cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP)
Experience in building and using other search products (Elasticsearch, Open Search, Lucene, Solr etc)
Proven experience in defining the roadmap, strategy, and go-to-market plans for a cloud service
Experience in SQL dialects, PowerShell, or automation experience
Background or experience in advanced search domains such as analytics and monitoring
Background in running services on Linux is plus
#AISearch #CoreAI #CoreAIIndiaHiring
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.
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.
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.