Principal Software Engineer Lead

At Team Xbox, we are on a mission to bring the joy and community of gaming to everyone on the planet. We deliver on that vision by putting players at the center, enabling you to play the games you want, with the people you want, anywhere you want.

Gaming Player Services and Operations is at the heart of our ambition to reach billions of players across the globe, ensuring that every player feels included and engaged across Xbox. We do this through our commitment to driving operational excellence through innovation and ensuring player and partner delight across Microsoft Gaming.

As part of GPSO, the Xbox Services & Operations (XSO) team mission is to build and maintain services enabling increased customer engagement plus player growth across the Microsoft Gaming eco-system. A significant part of this responsibility involves adopting and/or creating Cloud Solutions. We leverage Azure Cloud platform capabilities; along with investing in the engineering of complementary Observability and Manageability solutions to run our Gaming business. We use this approach to apply consistent and scalable solutions across existing Xbox services, aiding in broad adoption across our Gaming business partners and consulting with acquisitions to assure their migrations to Azure Cloud are executed successfully with high degrees of Operational Excellence. The end objective being assurance that all systems within our Microsoft Gaming portfolio are operating on modern cloud capabilities thus eliminating the burdens and risks associated with dedicated infrastructure and/or legacy solutions. This role requires developing strong working relationships across business partners in Gaming, aiding in creating unified cloud adoption plans and ultimately assisting with consultation or engineering execution of the migrations.

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineering Manager to own and build experiences surrounding parent and child account signups and parental management of safety controls across all Xbox clients on mobile devices, web browsers, consoles, PCs, and handhelds. In your capacity as Principal Software Engineering Lead, you will manage a creative team of 5+ software engineers to develop new platform features and deliver innovative gaming experiences in both web and native codebases. As team leader you will collaborate with geographically distributed product management, program management, UX design, and engineering teams to architect and design features and solutions that delight our customers. You will lead your team to implement and roll out your solutions while also developing, growing, and directing engineers to reach higher potential. 

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. 

Required Qualifications 

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or related technical discipline
• 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript or TypeScript (or equivalent experience)
• 4+ years experience in proven track record of developing, deploying, and maintaining high-performance, scalable web applications.   
• 4+ years proficiency experience in modern web development frameworks such as Remix, Next.js, React, Vue, Svelte, or Angular.   
• 2+ years people management experience. 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Additional Programming Proficiencies: Experience with C++, Objective-C, and Java is highly valued, especially in contexts requiring integration with native codebases.   
• Cloud Technologies: Experience with modern cloud services and understanding their integration into scalable web applications.   
• Advanced Web Development: Proficient in using React and TypeScript for building and shipping web applications.   
• Design Acumen:   
  • A keen understanding of product design, user interface design, and visual design principles.   
  • Ability to collaborate effectively with designers to implement aesthetically pleasing and functionally rich user experiences.   
  • Experience in creating interfaces that are intuitive and accessible across various device form factors.  
• Gaming Industry Insight:   
  • Technical knowledge of gaming-related challenges, such as responsive UX design and multi-platform compatibility.   
  • Experience with navigational inputs tailored to various devices, including gamepads, touch interfaces, and traditional mouse/keyboard setups.   
• Innovative Thinking: A history of applying innovative solutions to enhance product functionality and user experience across diverse platforms. 
• 4+ years people management experience. 

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

• Form and lead a team of 5+ engineers. 
• Drive execution on project strategy, in collaboration with product management. 
• Foster a culture of excellence in execution by adhering to modern engineering principles and practices. 
• Collaborate with leaders across geographic and organizational boundaries to make impactful changes. 
• Lead the definition of requirements, key performance indicator (KPIs), priorities and planning of engineering deliverables.  
• Coach and mentor team members.
• Actively shape and drive a flexible, diverse, and inclusive culture that brings out the best in the team.