Principal Software Engineer

The Azure Regional Networking team is seeking talented, highly motivated engineers to build advanced services and infrastructure for provisioning and managing our cloud-scale physical network. This work spans router hardware, operating systems—including Microsoft’s SONiC—configuration, optical transceivers, and globally distributed orchestration systems.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the scale and architecture of cloud infrastructure. Networks must expand rapidly, support significantly greater capacity, and become easier to deploy, automate, and operate reliably. Meeting these demands requires rethinking how routing, optics, hardware, and software function as an integrated system.

The Azure Regional Networking team operates one of the world’s largest network infrastructures, connecting servers, datacenters, and sites across the global Microsoft Cloud. The team continually advances networking technologies to provide millisecond-level access within datacenters and reach every person on the planet within 15 milliseconds, while delivering exceptional reliability, performance, and security.

In this role, you will own critical Azure network infrastructure components from design through deployment and operations. This highly visible position supports a major and growing investment in Microsoft Azure and AI datacenters, offers broad cross-company exposure, and provides significant opportunities for technical and career growth.

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.

• Partner with appropriate stakeholders to determine user requirements for a set of scenarios.
• Lead identification of dependencies and the development of design documents for a product, application, service, or platform.
• Lead 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.
• 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.
• AI-Driven Engineering: Apply AI and agents to our own engineering, across design, qualification, deployment and operations, so that engineers spend their time on architecture rather than on process.
• Technical Leadership and Influence: Lead across Azure engineering, hardware, supply chain, datacenter operations, Microsoft Research and external partners without relying on reporting lines. Mentor engineers, raise the technical bar, and communicate trade-offs clearly to engineers, vendors and senior leaders. 

Required 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 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 Python
  • OR 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.

#azurecorejobs

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:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

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.