Principal Software Engineer(M365 Storage Fabric team)

Microsoft 365 (M365) is at the center of Microsoft's cloud-first, AI-powered productivity strategy, bringing together services such as Teams, Exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Search, Copilot, and Office to empower organizations around the world. The M365 Storage Fabric team builds foundational platform capabilities that enable Microsoft 365 services to operate reliably, efficiently, and at hyperscale. We develop systems that optimize resource utilization, manage rapidly changing workload demands, improve service resilience, and support the next generation of AI-powered experiences. Our mission is to deliver dependable, scalable, and efficient infrastructure that helps Microsoft 365 customers achieve more while maximizing operational excellence across the platform. As AI workloads continue to accelerate across Microsoft 365, we are driving the evolution of intelligent platform services that can automatically adapt to dynamic traffic patterns, optimize infrastructure efficiency, and protect customer experiences at massive scale.

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

The team is looking for an experienced engineer to:

• Lead the design and development of large-scale distributed systems that manage resource allocation, workload execution, and service protection.

• Define and drive technical strategy for platform capabilities that improve reliability, efficiency, scalability, and operational excellence.

• Build intelligent, signal-driven automation using telemetry, health indicators, and real-time platform insights.

• Develop solutions that balance customer experience, infrastructure utilization, operational cost, and service performance.

• Drive innovations that proactively identify, mitigate, and prevent service disruptions.

• Partner with engineering teams across Microsoft 365, Copilot, Azure, and infrastructure organizations to deliver end-to-end platform solutions.

• Influence architecture, design, and engineering best practices across multiple teams.

• Mentor engineers and contribute to a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement.

• Help shape how future AI-powered services are scaled, managed, protected, and optimized across Microsoft 365.

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.

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.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, concurrency, reliability engineering, scalability, and platform architecture.
• Experience developing and operating highly available backend services at scale.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technically complex initiatives across multiple teams and organizations.
• Solid problem-solving skills involving system performance, resiliency, resource management, and operational excellence.
• Demonstrated ability to effectively leverage AI-assisted engineering tools and autonomous coding agents to improve software development productivity, quality, and operational effectiveness.
• Ability to critically evaluate, validate, and refine AI-generated code, designs, tests, diagnostics, and recommendations while maintaining full engineering ownership and accountability.
• Experience building infrastructure platforms, resource management systems, scheduling systems, load balancing systems, storage platforms, or large-scale backend services.
• Solid understanding of workload management, traffic engineering, fault tolerance, admission control, and capacity planning.
• Experience using telemetry, monitoring, and service health signals to drive automated operational decisions.
• Experience supporting services with rapidly changing demand patterns and large-scale customer workloads.
• Hands-on experience with cloud-native architectures and distributed platforms such as Azure or similar cloud environments.

Experience with:

• Microservices and service-oriented architectures
• Event-driven systems
• Large-scale telemetry systems
• Containerized and cloud-native environments
• Experience building or supporting AI-powered services and high-throughput systems.
• Familiarity with AI workload characteristics, including bursty traffic, latency sensitivity, resource contention, and dynamic scaling requirements.
• Experience integrating AI-assisted engineering workflows into software development, testing, debugging, code review, and operational processes.
• Proven ability to drive technical alignment and influence engineering decisions across organizational boundaries.
• Solid communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.

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.