New

Principal Software Engineer, CoreAI

Microsoft
$139,900.00 - $274,800.00 / yr
United States, Washington, Redmond
Jan 14, 2026
Overview CoreAIis at the forefront of Microsoft's mission to redefine how software is built and experienced. Weare responsible forbuildingthe foundationalplatforms, services, programming models, and developer experiences that power the next generation of applications using Generative AI. Our work enables developers and enterprises to harness the full potential of AI to create intelligent, adaptive, and transformative software. The AI Core Infrastructureteam, part of AI Platform team inCoreAIOrganizationis responsible for large-scale, highly reliable and efficient GPU management infrastructure and the inference and training platformsthatpowerall of Microsoft's AI workloads,such as M365 CoPilot,GithubCoPilot, Microsoft CoPilot,AI Foundry's Inference and Fine-Tuning offering of OAI and OSS models, and many more. As a Principal Engineer on the Observability team,you'llshape the architecture and strategyonhow customersmonitor, troubleshoot, and scale their AI training workloads.You'llwork across ML infrastructure, distributed systems, and observability to power large-scale pre-training, post-training, and fine-tuning on some of the world's largest AI supercomputers. Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Asemployeeswe 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. In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positivelyimpactour culture every day. Responsibilities Asthe Principalengineer on theObservabilityteam, your responsibilities include: Set the roadmap and drive the execution ofthe Observabilityplatform built for AIworkloadsata supercomputerscale. Deliver deep insights that empower customers to troubleshoot andoptimizetheir large-scale AI workloads Leverage production telemetry to influence next-generation infrastructure design, boosting efficiency, reliability, and performance Mentor and guide engineering teams, elevating technicalexcellenceand championing a customer-focused approach to system design. Qualifications Required Qualifications: Bachelor's orMaster's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, ora relatedfield. 6+ years of experience building oroperatingdistributed systems, with a strong focus on reliability, scalability, and performance. Proficiencyin one or more programming languages such asC#, C++, Go, or Python. Strong understanding ofDocker, Kubernetes, scalable architectures, and automationforproduction systems. Other Requirements: Abilityto meet Microsoft,customerand/or government security screening requirements arerequiredfor this role. These requirementsinclude butare 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: Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to extract customer pain points, synthesize ambiguous requirements, and design clear, scalable solutions. Expertisewith distributed observability technologies (e.g., Prometheus,OpenTelemetry, Grafana) and 2+ years of experience designing or scaling telemetry pipelines for high-throughput production systems. Advanced, hands-on experience with production ML systems. Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $139,900 - $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 Software Engineering IC6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $163,000 - $296,400 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 $220,800 - $331,200 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.