Principal Engineering Manager

Job ID: 200048644Posted: 2026-08-17Location: 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: MicrosoftOverviewAI agents are rapidly becoming foundational across industries, transforming how organizations automate workflows, make decisions, and scale productivity. Unlike traditional prompt based systems, modern agents can reason, plan, and execute actions autonomously unlocking new business scenarios and operational efficiencies. By 2028, more than 1.3 billion agents are expected to be in active use worldwide, creating not only unprecedented opportunities but also a massive new ecosystem that organizations must govern, monitor, and secure.Agent 365 is Microsoft’s unified control plane for AI agents—providing a comprehensive platform for agent registry, lifecycle management, access governance, observability, interoperability, and security. The WorkIQ‑Infra team builds the foundational connectors and connection‑management services that power Microsoft 365 Copilot, Agent 365 (A365), and Power Platform–based agents, workflows, and applications.As a Principal Engineering Manager, you will work on the Power Platform connectors space, a critical platform that enables secure, scalable, and compliant access to enterprise and third‑party systems. The connectors ecosystem is used by millions of tenants every day and is a core dependency for Copilot‑based agents, low‑code and pro‑code workflows, and intelligent applications across Microsoft.Your work will directly impact how agents authenticate, connect, and operate across organizational boundaries—at global Microsoft 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.ResponsibilitiesManage a team of high performing individuals to deliver product, features with agility and quality.Provide hands-on technical leadership: architecture, design, code reviews, development, quality assurance. Lead by example to integrate AI first development in the team.Partners with appropriate stakeholders to determine user requirements for a set of scenarios.Drives identification of dependencies and the development of design documents for a product, application, service, or platform.Directs efforts for creation and conducting of experimentation to determine the effectiveness of changes, monitors developments for prototyping and testing products, interprets results, and decides on next steps or ship decision from results.Drives identification of the correct metrics for experimentation in determining improving customer value.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., program 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.QualificationsRequired 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 PythonOR 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 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 PythonOR 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.4+ years people management experience.Experience in developing large scale, distributed, back end applications including handling live site and operational load of backend services. Software 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.