Principal Software Engineering Manager - Windows Inbox team
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Sep 30, 2026. First seen by Alion on Sep 11, 2026. Microsoft scores B on the Alion truth index.
The Windows Inbox team creates native experiences that ship with Windows and shape how customers use their PCs every day. By rethinking familiar applications and creating new experiences, we aim to help people get more done and make Windows more innovative, intuitive, and accessible.
We are hiring a Principal Software Engineering Manager to lead work across multiple native Windows applications. You will combine engineering and people leadership with strong product ownership, partnering closely with product management and design to understand customer needs, use data and experimentation to guide decisions, and turn ideas into high-quality experiences. You will develop a strong engineering team, drive execution and product quality, and communicate product health, priorities, and outcomes to senior leaders and partners across Windows.
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, coach, and develop a software engineering team. Set clear expectations and ownership, strengthen leadership across the team, and create an inclusive environment where engineers can grow and take on broader responsibilities.
- Bring an entrepreneurial mindset to product development. Identify new opportunities beyond the existing roadmap, challenge established assumptions, rapidly prototype promising ideas, and turn them into differentiated Windows experiences.
- Partner with product management and design to understand customer needs, shape priorities, evaluate ideas, and translate product direction into an actionable engineering roadmap.
- Own execution from planning through release and ongoing improvement. Establish clear processes and use planning and work-tracking practices to manage commitments, dependencies, quality, and risks.
- Partner with principal and senior engineers on architecture, design, performance, and reliability while enabling technical leaders to drive technical direction and execution.
- Use telemetry, analytics, experimentation, customer feedback, and product-quality signals to understand application health, identify opportunities, guide investment decisions, and measure results.
- Communicate product health, priorities, risks, trade-offs, and outcomes clearly to senior leaders and cross-functional partners.
- Work across Windows to align teams on platform capabilities, dependencies, customer needs, and shared product and technical decisions.
- Balance engineering capacity across new product work, platform modernization, technical debt, quality, and operational commitments. Make trade-offs clear and adjust investments based on customer needs and evidence.
Qualifications
Required/Minimum 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.
Additional or preferred qualifications
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:
- 8+ years of professional software engineering experience designing, building, shipping, and evolving complex customer-facing products, or equivalent experience.
- 4+ years of experience managing software engineering teams, including coaching engineers, developing talent, setting clear expectations, and delivering results through others.
- Experience owning customer-facing software products or major product areas across multiple releases, with accountability for product direction, customer experience, quality, and results.
- Experience using telemetry, analytics, experimentation, customer feedback, and product data to assess application health, prioritize investments, and improve product outcomes.
- Experience partnering closely with engineering, product management, and design to set direction, prioritize work, and make technical and product trade-offs.
- Experience communicating product health, priorities, risks, trade-offs, and results to senior leaders and cross-functional partners.
- Experience leading planning and execution across complex software products, including managing dependencies, quality, release readiness, and ongoing product improvement.
- Experience shipping native desktop or mobile applications at scale. Experience with Windows application development or technologies such as C++, C#, WinUI, XAML, Win32, Windows App SDK, UWP, or .NET is a plus.
#W+DJOBS
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.