Principal Software Engineer

Overview Ready to shape the future of AI? Join Azure Storage and help build the foundational platform powering the next generation of AI agents, frontier models, and intelligent cloud services. Every breakthrough in AI depends on storage. From training the world's largest models to enabling autonomous AI agents that reason, plan, and act, Azure Storage provides the critical data foundation behind Microsoft's AI ecosystem. As AI workloads continue to grow exponentially, we are reimagining how storage systems operate at hyperscale, pushing the boundaries of performance, scalability, reliability, and intelligent automation. Azure Storage is one of Microsoft’s largest and most critical cloud platforms, storing and protecting exabytes of customer data across regions worldwide. The platform provides a comprehensive storage portfolio, including Azure Blob Storage and Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) Gen2 for object storage and analytics workloads, Azure Files for shared file storage, and Azure Disks and Elastic SAN for high-performance block storage. Azure Storage powers AI, analytics, cloud-native applications, enterprise workloads, backup, and archival solutions, delivering industry-leading scalability, durability, availability, and security for customers around the globe. The Azure Storage Control Plane Engineering team builds the foundational infrastructure that enables customers and Azure services to provision, discover, manage, secure, and govern their data estate at global scale. The team designs and operates the control plane that orchestrates billions of operations and manages exabytes of data across Azure, developing the APIs, resource providers, orchestration systems, and management services behind every storage account, disk, file share, and data lake. Engineers on the team tackle some of the industry's most challenging distributed systems problems at the intersection of cloud infrastructure and AI, building the platform capabilities that enable customers, applications, and intelligent agents to manage storage seamlessly across one of Microsoft's largest cloud services. If you're passionate about building systems that operate at unprecedented scale, excited by the transformative potential of AI, and motivated by the opportunity to shape the next decade of cloud infrastructure, Azure Storage offers both the technical depth and strategic impact to make a lasting difference. 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 Lead the design and evolution of Azure Storage capabilities that power the next generation of AI platforms, autonomous AI agents, and hyperscale cloud services. Architect and deliver scalable control plane and management plane services that enable AI-scale workloads to provision, manage, and access storage resources with industry-leading performance, reliability, and efficiency Drive innovations in distributed systems, intelligent automation, and resource orchestration to eliminate bottlenecks and unlock the next order of magnitude of platform scale. Partner with engineers, architects, product managers, and AI platform teams across Microsoft to define technical strategy and deliver foundational capabilities that accelerate AI innovation Leverage cutting-edge AI engineering tools, agentic workflows, and code-generation technologies to accelerate development velocity, improve code quality, and enhance engineering productivity across the organization. Explore and implement AI-assisted software development practices, including automated code generation, test creation, debugging, design validation, and operational troubleshooting at cloud scale Help define how AI transforms software engineering at hyperscale, pioneering new approaches that combine human expertise with intelligent agents to build and operate the next generation of cloud infrastructure. Partner with AI platform teams to identify opportunities where intelligent agents can automate engineering, deployment, reliability, and operational workflows across Azure Storage Influence the long-term architecture and technical roadmap for Azure Storage, helping shape the storage foundation behind training, inference, and agentic AI workloads. Leverage deep expertise in cloud infrastructure and distributed systems to solve complex challenges in scalability, resiliency, availability, and operational excellence at global scale Serve as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI) for critical service components, driving end-to-end ownership of system health, reliability, performance, and incident response Qualifications Required Qualifications: Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C#, C++, Java, or other languages OR equivalent experience 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: Master's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C#, C++, Java, or other languages OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C#, C++, Java, or other languages OR equivalent experience Experience with: 7+ years designing and operating hyperscale cloud platforms, storage services, or distributed systems with a focus on scalability, reliability, and performance  Building distributed storage systems, databases, or infrastructure services at scale Designing platforms or services that power AI training, inference, retrieval, reasoning, or agent orchestration workloads Applying AI-powered engineering practices, including code-generation tools, agentic workflows, AI-assisted development, automated testing, debugging, and operational troubleshooting Building platforms or infrastructure that support AI workloads, large-scale inference systems, autonomous agents, or data-intensive applications Championing AI-first engineering practices and influencing engineering transformation across teams or organizations Proven track record of operating highly available cloud services with stringent reliability requirements Expertise in AI-enabled software engineering, including agentic development workflows, LLM-powered coding assistants, automated code generation, and intelligent operational tooling Proven technical leadership driving architecture, strategy, and execution for large-scale cloud services and distributed systems. Passion for leveraging AI to transform software engineering productivity, quality, and operational excellence at scale #azurecorejobs Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $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 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.