Senior Software Engineer Principal Software Engineer Copilot CLI

Within GitHub and MicrosoftCoreAI the Copilot CLI team buildsGitHubscoding agent in the terminal and the core agent loop that powers agentic experiences across GitHub and Microsoft. Our work spans the full software development lifecycle with a focus on turning modern AI systems into reliable production-grade developer tools.

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to help build a world-class coding agent CLI. This role is for engineers who care deeply about product quality end-to-end ownership and the details that separate promising tools from ones developers trust and adopt daily.

Our work sits at the intersection of agentic AI systems and high-performance developer tooling. We are particularly interested in candidates with strength in one or more of the following areas:

• Building evaluating and iterating on agentic systems including tool design agent loops benchmarking and quality optimization

• Building delightful high-performance terminal experiences including terminal UIs low-level primitives and systems that feel fast predictable and polished

Engineers on this teamoperatewith high autonomy and a strong product mindset. You will own large surface areas end-to-end partner closely with product and design and push to continuously raise the quality bar for both the CLI and the underlying agent platform used across GitHub and Microsoft.

Microsofts mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As part of GitHub andCoreAI we build developer tools that materially improve how software is written reviewed and shipped whilemaintaininga culture of ownership rigor and technical excellence.

Microsofts 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.

• Take ownership of critical product and platform areas of the Copilot CLI and shared agent runtime

• Set a high technical and quality bar for agentic systems and developer-facing tooling

• Design and ship performant reliable terminal experiences that developers depend on for daily work

• Use data benchmarks and direct user feedback to guide iteration and investment

• Collaborate across org boundaries to enable other teams to build agentic products on top of a shared foundation

• Influence architecture technical direction and engineering standards beyond your immediate team

Required Qualifications

• Bachelors Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 4 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

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

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelors 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.

• Hands-on experience building and operating generative AI or agentic systems in production with direct ownership over quality reliability and iteration

• 5 years of experience building and shipping customer-facing developer products with depth across platform/foundation systems and user-facing experiences

• Strong product mindset witha track recordof owning ambiguous problem spaces and driving them to high-quality outcomes

• Solid engineering fundamentals including systems design performance and debugging in complex production environments

• Experience designing running andoptimizingevaluations for agentic systems including tools prompts and agent loops

• Experience building terminal user interfaces (TUIs) or working with low-level terminal primitives is a strong plus

• Experience contributing to or leading open-source projects at scale is a plus

Software Engineering IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119800 - $234700 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 $160200 - $261000 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142800 - $274800 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 $188000 - $304200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
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.

Required Experience:

IC