Principal Software Engineer / Principal AI Engineer - Commerce Platforms

Job ID: 200042969Posted: 2026-08-24Location: United States, Washington, RedmondSalary: USD $142,800 - $274,800 per yearEmployment type: Full-TimeWork site: 3 days / week in-officeRole type: Individual ContributorTravel: Less than 25%Profession: Software EngineeringDiscipline: Software EngineeringCompany: MicrosoftOverviewMicrosoft’s Commerce Platforms organization enables scalable, resilient, and AI-powered commerce and finance platforms by improving governance, accelerating decisions, and streamlining end-to-end operations.Our teams build and operate the intelligent commerce foundations, financial platforms, global payments systems, offer management services, commerce data platforms, AI-powered capabilities, and cloud-scale infrastructure that power Microsoft’s worldwide commerce ecosystem. These mission-critical platforms support customers, partners, and employees globally while enabling secure, reliable, scalable, compliant, and data-driven commerce experiences.We are hiring for multiple Principal Software Engineer and Principal AI Engineer opportunities across Commerce Platforms. These roles span several high-impact engineering areas, including:AI-powered business applications and intelligent automationFinancial Platforms and Revenue SystemsGlobal Payments PlatformsOffers & Data ModelCommerce Infrastructure and Cloud EngineeringIn these roles, you will provide technical leadership across complex, interconnected commerce systems. You will help define platform strategy, drive architecture, modernize services, scale AI-native engineering practices, and influence technical direction across teams. Whether your background is in distributed systems, payments, financial platforms, commerce data, cloud infrastructure, or production AI systems, you will have the opportunity to shape platforms that power Microsoft’s global commerce ecosystem.You will partner across engineering, product, research, data, security, compliance, and business teams to solve ambiguous technical challenges, deliver durable platform capabilities, and create business-critical impact at global 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.ResponsibilitiesLead architecture, technical strategy, and design for large-scale commerce, financial, payments, data, AI, and cloud platform systems.Define and drive technical direction across complex services, platforms, and cross-team initiatives.Design and evolve cloud-native distributed systems with a focus on scalability, reliability, performance, security, compliance, accessibility, and operational excellence.Lead the development of AI-powered capabilities, intelligent automation, agentic workflows, LLM-enabled applications, data-driven insights, and AI-assisted engineering practices.Drive platform modernization efforts that improve system consistency, extensibility, resiliency, developer productivity, and long-term maintainability.Influence roadmaps and technical investments by partnering with engineering leaders, product managers, architects, researchers, data scientists, and business stakeholders.Evaluate technical tradeoffs, manage dependencies, and resolve architectural challenges across multiple teams, systems, and organizations.Champion engineering excellence through secure development practices, automation, CI/CD, observability, testing, telemetry, incident response, and live-site rigor.Establish patterns, frameworks, and reusable platform capabilities that enable teams to deliver faster and with higher quality.Mentor and develop engineers through technical guidance, design reviews, code reviews, knowledge sharing, and leadership by example.Help foster an inclusive engineering culture grounded in collaboration, accountability, customer focus, and continuous learning.QualificationsRequired/minimum qualificationsBachelor'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.Other RequirementsAbility 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.Additional or preferred qualificationsExperience designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems, cloud platforms, production services, or enterprise software systems.Experience leading complex technical initiatives that span multiple teams, services, or organizations.Deep expertise in software architecture, system design, scalability, reliability, performance, and operational excellence.Proficiency in C#, Java, Python, C++, JavaScript, or similar programming languages.Experience with Azure, AWS, GCP, or other cloud platforms; Azure experience preferred.Experience with commerce platforms, financial systems, payments, billing, revenue systems, pricing, catalog, offer management, data platforms, or large-scale transaction processing.Experience building or leading AI-powered solutions, production AI applications, LLM-enabled experiences, agentic workflows, intelligent automation, applied machine learning capabilities, or AI-assisted engineering practices.Experience with CI/CD, Azure DevOps, automated testing, monitoring, telemetry, observability, incident management, and DevOps practices.Understanding of security, privacy, accessibility, compliance, reliability, and Responsible AI principles.Ability to create clarity in ambiguous environments, influence without authority, and align stakeholders around durable technical decisions.Communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear engineering, product, and business direction.Demonstrated ability to mentor senior engineers and raise the engineering bar across an organization.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: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.