Principal Software Engineer - CoreAI

Software quality is being redefined by AI. As part of the Microsoft Playwright team , you'll build the foundation for how developers validate and trust the next generation of AI-assisted code. You'll work on open-source, cross-platform automation technology that powers reliable testing at scale across browsers, devices, and frameworks. You'll collaborate closely with the GitHub and VS Code teams to deliver fast, deterministic, and secure testing solutions that integrate deeply into the modern developer workflow and serve millions worldwide.

As a Principal Software Engineer - CoreAI on the Playwright engineering team, you will design and implement systems that bring AI-native and agentic capabilities to test automation. You'll advance Playwright's runtime, infrastructure, and tooling to enable autonomous agents to reason about, generate, and validate software behavior. This opportunity will allow you to deepen your expertise in AI-assisted development, push the boundaries of intelligent automation with GitHub and VS Code, and expand your impact as a hands-on engineer defining the next era of software quality.

Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and stronevery 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.

• Leads identification of dependencies and the development of design documents for a product, application, service, or platform.
• Leads by example and mentors others to produce extensible and maintainable code used across products.
• Leverages subject-matter expertise of cross-product features with appropriate stakeholders (e.g., project managers) to drive multiple group's project plans, release plans, and work items.
• Holds accountability as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI), mentoring engineers across products/solutions, working on-call to monitor system/product/service for degradation, downtime, or interruptions.
• Proactively seeks new knowledge and adapts to new trends, technical solutions, and patterns that will improve the availability, reliability, efficiency, observability, and performance of products while also driving consistency in monitoring and operations at scale and shares knowledge with other engineers.

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.

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:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 10+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
• 3+ years of experience with AI LLM models, such as OpenAI, Azure AI, ML
• 3+ years of experience with browser engineering
• 3+ years of experience with network security

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800.00 - $274,800.00 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 $188,000.00 - $304,200.00 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.