Principal Software Engineer

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The Azure Kubernetes Service team is dedicated to building high-quality container management and orchestration services for Microsoft Azure and beyond. This team develops scalable and reliable infrastructure solutions for cloud-native applications, enabling developers to build, deploy, and manage their workloads efficiently.

We are looking for an experienced Principal Software Engineer who is interested in containers and container orchestration using Kubernetes. Candidates should also have an interest in shaping the future of development and operations (DevOps) systems to simplify the cloud application lifecycle. The role involves designing architecture, implementing core components, delivering products, and supporting customers. You will work closely with stakeholders to identify dependencies, develop design documentation, and define user requirements for various scenarios.

This position offers a unique opportunity to contribute at the intersection of open-source technologies, cloud platform development, and artificial intelligence (AI). You will collaborate with Azure product teams and the broader Kubernetes community to advance Kubernetes networking and support a wide range of Azure customers, including those building AI-powered applications.

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 discipline 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.
• 4+ years of experience in building, shipping, and operating reliable, distributed solutions.

• 2+ years of experience in Kubernetes development

• 1+ year(s) of experience engaging in site-reliability engineering practices
• 1+ year(s) of experience using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support coding tasks.

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 10+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, Go, C#, Rust, or C/C++
  • OR Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, Go, C#, Rust, or C/C++
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 4+ years people management experience.
• 5+ years of experience designing and delivering cloud-native platforms and applications based on the Kubernetes ecosystem
• 5+ years of site-reliability or infrastructure engineering experience including monitoring, system resilience, incident response, and prevention.

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

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until October 10, 2025.

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• Partners with appropriate stakeholders to identify the direction and dependencies for products/features fulfilling a set of scenarios.
• Leads by example and mentors others to produce extensible and maintainable code used across products.
• 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.
• Increase development speed and efficiency across the AKS engineering team.
• 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.