Principal Software Engineer – Office AI Automation

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will be at the forefront of crafting and leading customer-focused AI experiences and services. This role offers you the unique opportunity to leverage your passion for technology and innovation to envision and architect solutions that push the boundaries of what is possible. You will collaborate closely with Product Managers, Business Managers, Engineers, and other Architects, playing a pivotal role in delivering solutions that not only meet but exceed customer expectations.   

This opportunity will allow you to accelerate your career growth, work with cutting-edge technologies, and contribute to a culture of inclusion and belonging. You will have the chance to shape the future of AI in our industry and see your work impact our products and services on a global scale.   

The Office AI Automation team is building the next generation of Copilot capabilities aimed at automating tasks for Microsoft 365 customers so they can achieve more. Our focus is on developing large-scale AI based systems, creating modern user interfaces, and building platforms that seamlessly integrate AI into professional workflows. Leveraging state-of-the-art technologies, we guide our AI projects from inception to worldwide release. Join us to lead and shape the future of intelligent automation experiences through their full lifecycle.  

We understand the importance of work-life balance and offer flexible working arrangements, allowing you to work from home partially or fully, depending on project requirements and personal preferences.  

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 field AND proven experience and track record in advanced software development and architecture, showcasing expertise in building commercial-grade, high-availability services with mastery in languages such as Java, C/C++, C#, Python, and JavaScript.  
  • OR equivalent experience.  
• Demonstrated leadership and mentorship capabilities within technical teams, guiding complex projects from planning through execution and service operation, with a commitment to software engineering excellence.  
• Exceptional ability to coordinate and mediate large scale, cross team, industry level technical challenges.  
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a history of navigating significant technical challenges, emphasizing a continuous release mindset and service operation in a dynamic environment.  
• Exceptional ability to lead in fast-paced settings, driven by a strong customer focus and data-driven decision-making, with self-motivation and collaborative success in innovative projects.  

Preferred Qualifications  

• Familiarity with Full Stack AI/ML solutions across UX, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS tiers is highly desirable.  
• Experiences in the areas of online services such as search, online advertisement, recommendation systems, HTML5 development, Azure, AWS, or other main cloud services, are pluses.   

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.

• Establish long term technical strategy and direction for key Office/Microsoft 365 AI initiatives. 
• Break new grounds in utilizing AI in modern applications through agenting workflows.  
• Create and improve architecture designs for complex end to end scenarios that involve multiple teams and services.  
• Build cross team consensus on agentic platform solutions and best practices. 
• Drive the engineering culture to strive for a scalable architecture, operational excellence, experimentation driven culture, growth mindset, and being customer obsessed.  
• Influence, lead, and collaborate effectively across leadership, teams, and organizations to drive outcomes – the scope here is company-wide.  
• Collaborate with Product teams to make sure we address key customer needs and put customer feedback in centre of product design  
• Need to operate effectively amongst executive leadership and executive stakeholders.  
• Foster a healthy and inclusive team environment.