Principal Engineer-Networking

Do you want to be at the forefront of innovating the latest hardware designs to propel Microsoft’s cloud growth? Are you seeking a unique career opportunity that combines technical capabilities, cross-team collaboration with business insight and strategy?

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 achieve 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 positively impact our culture every day.

Join the Strategic Planning and Architecture (SPARC) team within Microsoft’s Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure (AHSI) organization, the team behind Microsoft’s expanding Cloud Infrastructure and for powering Microsoft’s “Intelligent Cloud” mission. Microsoft delivers more than 200 online services to more than one billion individuals worldwide, and AHSI is the team behind our expanding cloud infrastructure. We deliver the core infrastructure and foundational technologies for Microsoft's cloud businesses including Microsoft Azure, Bing, MSN, Office 365, OneDrive, Skype, Teams and Xbox Live.

We are seeking a Principal Engineer-Networking to joing our team!

Responsibilities

• Architect and lead development of robust networking and telemetry frameworks for large-scale cloud platforms.
• Own end-to-end technical strategy, making high-impact architectural decisions.
• Mentor and coach engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and growth.
• Collaborate with product, hardware, and business teams to define requirements and deliver strategic solutions.
• Ensure code quality, reliability, and security through rigorous reviews and automation.
• Drive adoption of best practices in observability, diagnostics, and performance optimization.
• Represent the team in cross-functional forums, influencing organizational priorities and technical direction.
• Lead incident response, root cause analysis, and continuous improvement for live site reliability. 

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of experience in software engineering, with deep expertise in networking and telemetry systems.
• 5+ years of experience technical leadership and architectural ownership in large-scale distributed systems.

Other Requirements:

• Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening reqirements 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.

• Master'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++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 15+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.
• Expertise in cloud technologies.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor and develop engineering talent.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience driving strategic initiatives and influencing organizational direction.

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 ar