Principal Software Engineer

Overview

Microsoft is a company where passionate innovators come to collaborate, envision what can be and take their careers further. This is a world of more possibilities, more innovation, more openness, and the sky is the limit thinking in a cloud-enabled world.

Microsoft’s Azure Data engineering team is leading the transformation of analytics in the world of data with products like databases, data integration, big data analytics, messaging & real-time analytics, and business intelligence. The products our portfolio include Microsoft Fabric, Azure SQL DB, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure PostgreSQL, Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Service Bus, Azure Event Grid, and Power BI. Our mission is to build the data platform for the age of AI, powering a new class of data-first applications and driving a data culture. 

Within Microsoft Fabric, the Azure Monitor team builds services that enable customers to monitor, detect, troubleshoot, and mitigate issues with their services through an increasingly agentic experience. Azure Monitor includes Log Analytics, Application Insights, Container Insights, Hosted Prometheus, Azure Managed Grafana, and more. Additionally, Azure Monitor is the platform upon which Microsoft Sentinel is built. We have a multi-billion dollar business that is growing rapidly, and we run some of the world’s highest scale observability services both for Microsoft internally and for our external customers, processing over 1.5 Exabytes of logs daily and tracking over 100 billion active metrics.​

The Azure Monitor Agent team is looking for a Principal Software Engineer to help us accelerate modernization of reliable and cost-efficient managed telemetry pipelines delivering observability data from Azure and the Edge to a plethora of destinations. This includes data collection, processing, transformations, and egress, all with a particular focus on security, privacy, and performance. Beyond individual contributions, you’ll collaborate across teams, mentor engineers, and help establish technical direction and engineering standards as the platform evolves, enabling strategic growth. 

We do not just value differences or different perspectives. We seek them out and invite them in so we can tap into the collective power of everyone in the company. As a result, our customers are better served.

Responsibilities

• ​​Own the design, implementation, and operation of cloud-scale solutions, telemetry platforms, data pipelines, and infrastructure components.
• Design resilient, observable, and secure distributed systems capable of operating at global scale.
• Drive technical direction for significant product areas and influence architectural decisions across multiple teams.
• Lead complex engineering initiatives from definitions through production deployment and operational maturity.
• Partner with product management, SRE, security, compliance, CSS, and platform teams to deliver end-to-end solutions.
• Establish and champion engineering best practices for design reviews, code reviews, testing, deployment, monitoring, and incident response.
• Investigate and resolve highly complex production issues, performing root cause analysis and driving long-term correcting actions.
• Drive cross-team alignment and execution for initiatives that span multiple services or organizations.

Embody our culture and values

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  ​ 

Job Requirements: Other & Additional  

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 

• ​​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.  
• Preferred demonstrated experience with Rust coding language.
• Preferred demonstrated experience with observability systems, telemetry pipelines, monitoring platforms, Open Telemetry, or cloud-native infrastructure.
• Preferred demonstrated experience with Kubernetes, containers, cloud platforms, or large-scale data processing systems.​ ​ 

Equal Opportunity Employer (EOP) 

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. If you need assistance and/or reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form (Accessibility | Microsoft Careers). 

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work. 

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.

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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.