Principal Software Engineers (Commerce Platforms)

Microsoft's Commerce Platforms organization builds and operates scalable, resilient, and AI-powered commerce and financial platforms that support customers, partners, suppliers, and employees globally. We are looking for Principal Software Engineers to provide technical leadership and drive the architecture, design, and evolution of modern cloud-native applications, distributed services, and large-scale data systems that turn complex data and workflows into trusted experiences and actionable insights.

In this role, you will lead technical strategy and execution across frontend and backend systems, APIs, workflow orchestration, data engineering, analytics, and AI-powered capabilities. You will define scalable architectures, build foundational platform capabilities, solve complex technical challenges, and influence engineering direction across teams and organizations.

You will also help shape how AI-assisted engineering and emerging agentic workflows are incorporated into our platforms and engineering practices. This includes identifying opportunities to apply Generative AI, agents, automation, and intelligent tooling to improve customer experiences, accelerate development, modernize systems, and strengthen software quality and operational reliability.

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will partner closely with engineering leaders, product managers, architects, and cross-functional teams to translate ambiguous business and technical challenges into long-term technical strategies. You will lead by example, mentor engineers, drive alignment across organizational boundaries, and raise the engineering bar for architecture, security, reliability, scalability, and operational excellence.

Candidates who live within 50 miles of Microsoft's Redmond campus will be required to work in the office 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 the architecture, design, development, and evolution of scalable, secure, and highly reliable cloud-native applications, distributed services, and data platforms.
• Define technical strategy and architectural direction for complex systems spanning applications, APIs, platform services, workflow orchestration, data, analytics, and AI capabilities.
• Drive end-to-end technical solutions using technologies such as C#, JavaScript/TypeScript, ReactJS, Azure services, REST APIs, and modern cloud and web technologies.
• Architect reusable data processing frameworks, data models, metrics, and data contracts that support large-scale analytical, operational, and business requirements.
• Identify and lead opportunities to build intelligent experiences using Generative AI, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), AI agents, semantic search, and workflow orchestration.
• Translate complex and ambiguous business requirements into clear technical strategies, architectures, and execution plans that can scale across teams and scenarios.
• Create and drive architecture proposals, technical roadmaps, implementation strategies, engineering standards, and operational readiness plans.
• Lead platform modernization efforts that improve scalability, resiliency, observability, security, compliance, accessibility, maintainability, performance, and developer productivity.
• Establish and champion engineering best practices across design, development, testing, CI/CD, code quality, secure development, operational readiness, and AI-assisted engineering.
• Drive improvements in live-site health through architecture, telemetry, automation, troubleshooting, incident learnings, performance optimization, and long-term engineering investments.
• Provide technical leadership across organizational boundaries, influencing architecture and engineering decisions across multiple teams and partner organizations.
• Mentor senior engineers, develop technical leaders, lead design and architecture reviews, and raise the overall engineering standards of the organization.
• Identify long-term technical risks and opportunities, balancing near-term business needs with platform sustainability, extensibility, and future growth.

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 Scala, Python, C#, Java 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/Additional Qualifications:

• Experience with cloud-native data platforms such as Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse, Azure Data Lake, or comparable cloud technologies.
• Experience with modern web technologies, including intuitive interfaces and reusable backend capabilities.
• Experience with Azure DevOps, including source control, build and release pipelines, and CI/CD practices.
• Experience with software engineering fundamentals, including design, coding, testing, debugging, code reviews, and production support.
• Experience or domain knowledge in direct and/or indirect procurement, including enterprise purchasing, sourcing, supplier, catalog, or related workflows OR experience with SQL, data modeling, and large-scale data processing using technologies such as Apache Spark, Delta Lake, or equivalent frameworks.
• Hands on experience building AI-driven business solutions.
• Analytical, problem-solving, communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Experience building enterprise applications or platforms that support complex workflows and API integrations across multiple systems.
• Experience building LLM-enabled applications, RAG solutions, AI agents, intelligent automation, or agentic workflows.
• Understanding of security, privacy, accessibility, reliability, and Responsible AI principles.
• Experience with automated testing, monitoring, telemetry, observability, and DevOps practice

Software Engineering IC5 - 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.