Principal Software Engineer

As Microsoft scales its Sovereign capabilities and aligns to increasing regulatory expectations and customer demands, our team is evolving to meet this challenge—by deepening our partnerships and expanding our platforms and services to support the growth.

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to help define and deliver customer-obsessed solutions that enable customers and developers to build security in from the start across our sovereign and commercial cloud environments. In this role, you will partner across Microsoft to make critical architectural decisions in an ambiguous, high-impact space. You will design and build scalable, resilient services that help form the security foundation of our cloud platform—enabling compliance, data residency, and trust for customers worldwide. 

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.

• Architect Sovereign Security Solutions: Design and drive the architecture for security services that meet sovereign cloud requirements, including data residency, regulatory compliance, and isolation guarantees.
• Drive Cross-Org Integration: Partner with teams across Microsoft Security, Azure, and the SCS group to influence platform architecture and ensure seamless integration as we bring Sovereign capabilities to commercial.
• Build Scalable, Resilient Services: Develop distributed cloud services that are reliable, performant, and maintainable at global scale, with a focus on high availability and operational excellence.
• Lead Technical Strategy in Ambiguous Spaces: Navigate complex, undefined problem spaces to identify the right technical approach. Evaluate emerging technologies and drive experimentation to inform platform direction.
• Embed Operational Excellence: Incorporate live site readiness, monitoring, incident response, and performance optimization into the development lifecycle from day one.
• Raise the Engineering Bar: Champion engineering best practices, clean code, modern development standards, and developer productivity improvements across the team.
• Mentor and Influence: Act as a technical leader and multiplier across the organization, guiding senior engineers and shaping the technical culture of the MSC Security Fundamentals team.
• Embody Our  Culture and Values 

• Bachelor'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 equivalent experience. 

Other Requirements:

• Citizenship & Citizenship Verification: This position requires verification of U.S citizenship due to citizenship-based legal restrictions. Specifically, this position supports United States federal, state, and/or local United States government agency customers and is subject to certain citizenship-based restrictions where required or permitted by applicable law. To meet this legal requirement, citizenship will be verified via a valid passport. 
• Citizenship & Citizenship Verification: This role will require access to information that is controlled for export under U.S. export control regulations, potentially under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations or the Export Administration Regulations.  As a condition of employment, the successful candidate will be required to provide proof of citizenship, for assessment of eligibility to access the export-controlled information.  To meet this legal requirement, citizenship will be verified via a valid passport.
• 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 12+ years of technical engineering experience
  • OR Bachelor’s Degree AND 15+ years of equivalent experience.
• 8+ years of experience designing, building, and operating scalable, highly available cloud services or distributed systems on Azure, with production ownership and CI/CD pipeline integration.
• 8+ years of experience applying distributed systems concepts such as concurrency, conflict resolution, and consensus algorithms to build resilient back-end architectures.
• 8+ years of experience designing, developing, or maintaining secure software systems, with applied knowledge of authentication, data protection, access control, and secure coding practices.
• Experience with sovereign cloud, data residency, or regulatory compliance requirements in cloud platform engineering.
• 8+ years of experience building systems with emphasis on reliability, durability, and operational efficiency, including live site operations, incident response, and performance optimization.
• 8+ years of experience programming in modern back-end languages such as C#, Java, Go, or Python 
• 5+ years of experience designing, building, and operating cloud services or distributed systems on Azure or comparable cloud platforms.
• 5+ years of experience designing and building solutions using microservices architecture with production ownership.

Software Engineering IC6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $165,600 - $296,400 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 $220,800 - $331,200 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.