Principal Software Engineer - Azure Kubernetes Services

Are you passionate about containerized applications and cloud-native software development? If so, this opportunity may be a great fit for you. The Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) team manages Kubernetes so that Azure Kubernetes Service customers can focus on building and running their applications without the overhead of managing infrastructure.

As a Principal Software Engineer on the Azure Kubernetes Service team, you will collaborate with key stakeholders to design architecture, implement core components, deliver product features, and support customer needs. You will lead the identification of dependencies and contribute to the development of design documentation for products, applications, services, or platforms. In addition, you will partner with relevant stakeholders to define user requirements across a variety of scenarios.

This role offers the chance to work on impactful technologies that shape the future of cloud-native computing. You will be part of a team that values technical excellence, cross-functional collaboration, and continuous learning, all while contributing to scalable and reliable solutions for global customers.

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.

Responsibilities

• Partners with appropriate stakeholders to determine user requirements for a set of scenarios.
• Leads identification of dependencies and the development of design documents for a product, application, service, or platform.
• Leads 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.
• Holds accountability as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI), mentoring engineers across products/solutions, working on-call to monitor system/product/service for degradation, downtime, or interruptions.
• 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.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications: 

• Bachelor'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++, Golang or Rust
  • OR equivalent experience. 
• 4+ years of experience working with Kubernetes OR managing distributed systems in production.

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:  

• 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++, Golang or Rust OR Python 
  • OR Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 10+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to,C, C++, Golang or Rust
  • OR equivalent experience. 

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, with