Principal Software Engineering Manager

Overview: 

Microsoft Whiteboard is an intelligent canvas for creative teamwork. Whiteboard provides a highly collaborative experience that enables teams to work together on a digital canvas. Visual Collab org at Microsoft is building the Visual Collaboration services and experiences for the era of AI using Whiteboard where engineers design and build the technology to power new, large-scale, highly collaborative experiences for Microsoft Teams, Surface Hub, desktop, mobile, and web. We work in close partnership with the Teams and Surface teams to jointly deliver delightful, end-to-end collaborative inking experiences and accessible meetings to our customers. We also work closely with the OneDrive / SharePoint and Fluid Framework teams to provide compliant storage for our customers. 

As a Principal Software Engineering Manager, you will lead a forward-thinking team dedicated to building the Whiteboard application & services. You take ownership as a self-starter, highly motivated, execution-focused, design solutions for scale and passionate about providing friction free experience for customers. You will drive design across different large-scale apps & services like Teams, Surface, OneDrive, Planner to build end to end solutions.  

Qualifications

Educational Foundation: A bachelor's degree in computer science or a related technical discipline is required. A master's degree or higher is preferred. 

Leadership Excellence: Exceptional skills with a proven ability to inspire and lead cross-functional engineering teams, fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation. 

Extensive Engineering Experience: At least 10 years of professional software development experience, with a strong track record of building large-scale, reliable cloud services. Proficiency in general-purpose programming languages such as C#, TypeScript, C/C++ is essential. 

Management Expertise: A minimum of 5 years of experience in managing software development teams, demonstrating the ability to nurture talent, drive team performance, and deliver high-quality software solutions. 

Technical Proficiency: Experience with data platforms like Cosmos, Synapse, or Cosmos DB will be considered an added advantage. 

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.

Responsibilities

• Strategically own and lead the full spectrum of services from conception to deployment, ensuring a seamless end-to-end lifecycle. 

• Directly manage and mentor a dedicated team of 8 to 10 software engineers, fostering a culture of innovation and excellence. 

• Architect and engineer large-scale distributed software services and solutions, setting a high bar for design and development practices. 

• Champion and enforce modern software engineering practices, including rigorous design reviews and adherence to best practices. 

• Drive system design with well-defined interfaces across multiple components, utilizing code reviews and data/telemetry for informed decision-making. 

• Cultivate best-in-class engineering by ensuring services and components are modular, secure, reliable, diagnosable, actively monitored, and reusable. 

• Enhance test coverage for services, spearhead integration tests, and proactively address and resolve problem areas. 

• Prioritize testability, monitoring, observability, reliability, and maintainability, recognizing when code meets Microsoft's standards for sharing and delivery. 

• Develop a deep understanding of Microsoft's business landscape, collaborating with mentors and leaders to deliver cohesive user experiences. 

• Focus on customer and partner needs with a data-driven approach, translating feedback into actionable insights and service improvements. 

• Troubleshoot and optimize automation, reliability, and monitoring to maintain high service quality and address Live Site issues. 

• Engage in on-call rotations, providing expert support and debugging for both customer-reported and internally identified service incidents.