Principal Software Engineer Manager

Job ID: 200045549Posted: 2026-08-04Location: United States, Washington, RedmondSalary: USD $142,800 - $274,800 per yearEmployment type: Full-TimeWork site: 3 days / week in-officeRole type: People ManagerTravel: Less than 25%Profession: Software EngineeringDiscipline: Software EngineeringCompany: MicrosoftOverviewAre you an experienced software engineer with a passion for Windows? Are you an individual that has a background in successfully launching innovative experiences? Do you excel in collaborating across design, program management, and data disciplines? Do you thrive on solving complex and ambiguous challenges? If so, come join us! We are the Microsoft Store team. Our team is focused on ensuring that Windows users at home, work, and school find it easy to discover and engage with the experiences they need most and that Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) are excited to build Windows experiences because they can innovate, differentiate, and exceed their business goals on Windows. As a Principal Software Engineer Manager on the Microsoft Store team, you will lead a full-stack engineering team responsible for a portfolio of high-scale backend services. You will set technical direction, author the Azure infrastructure that runs and delivers these services reliably, and grow a healthy, high-performing team. You will own service reliability, performance, and trust, partnering across engineering, product, and program management to deliver services that millions of customers and partners depend on every day. At Microsoft, our mission—to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more—guides how we partner with customers to deliver trusted, impactful solutions. With a growth mindset culture, we innovate responsibly and measure success by shared progress—people, teams, and customers. Join us to do meaningful work that changes the world and helps shape what’s next for everyone.ResponsibilitiesProvide hands-on technical leadership, with experience building and shipping solutions using Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative AI. Help the team adopt Artificial Intelligence (AI) effectively and safely in engineering workflows.Lead, attract, hire, mentor, develop, and retain a solid, diverse engineering team, fostering ownership, urgency, inclusion, clear communication, growth, and well-being.Set technical direction for high-scale backend services and their Azure infrastructure, using Infrastructure-as-Code and architectural patterns that balance reliability, performance, scalability, maintainability, reuse, and cost.Own service reliability and performance as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI), driving production troubleshooting, incident response, telemetry, service health monitoring, and a healthy on-call rotation.Ensure solid engineering quality, craftsmanship, security, privacy, fraud prevention, and compliance through effective test strategy, code health, regression prevention, automation, tooling, and operational practices.Partner across frontend engineering, product, design, and program management to plan and deliver high-impact services and releases, manage cross-service dependencies, and bring clarity and momentum to ambiguous problems through resolution.QualificationsRequired 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 PythonOR 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. Preferred Qualifications3+ years people management experience leading software engineering teams.Experience designing, building, and operating high-scale backend services on Azure or a comparable cloud platform.Experience with production operations, including on-call, telemetry, and service health monitoring.Experience with service architectures such as event-driven architecture, microservices, and service-oriented architecture (SOA).Experience with Azure Monitor and internal observability and diagnostics tooling such as Geneva.Experience with service compliance and trust, including GDPR, privacy, fraud detection, and security.Experience applying Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) to deliver reliable, repeatable cloud deployments.#W+DJOBSSoftware Engineering M5 - 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.