Principal Software Engineer

** Overview*
* The Azure Storage Fundamentals team is looking for a talented, motivated Principal Software Engineer to help design and develop the next generation of storage backend technologies. We build Microsoft Azure Storage, Microsoft's cloud storage platform, a massively scalable, distributed, and highly accessible storage system that serves customers around the world. We continue to experience significant growth, with exabytes of customer data already stored and systems being designed to support zettabyte-scale demands for years to come.

This is an opportunity to work on some of the largest and most sophisticated distributed systems in the industry while helping shape the future of cloud storage. We are looking for engineers who are passionate about learning, collaborating across teams, and writing high-quality software that delivers meaningful impact at global scale.

As a Principal Software Engineer on the Azure Storage Fundamentals team, you will help define and drive solutions that improve the reliability, scalability, and engineering productivity of the Azure Storage ecosystem. You will influence technical strategy, lead high-impact initiatives, and partner with teams across Azure Storage to enable efficient development, testing, and deployment of next-generation hyperscale storage systems. This role focuses on the architecture, automation, and evolution of engineering systems, repositories, and pipelines, as well as advancing test automation, investigating complex networking and deployment scenarios, and improving development workflows.

You will have the opportunity to make meaningful contributions every day while helping teams deliver reliable, secure, and scalable cloud services to customers worldwide.

Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. We foster a culture built on growth mindset, innovation, collaboration, and inclusion, where employees support one another, embrace challenges, and continuously learn. Grounded in our values of respect, integrity, and accountability, we strive to create an environment where everyone can thrive both at work and beyond.

** Responsibilities*
* + Works with appropriate stakeholders to determine user requirements for a set of features

+ Contributes to the identification of dependencies, and the development of design documents for a product area with little oversight

+ Creates and implements code for a product, service, or feature, reusing code as applicable

+ Contributes to efforts to break down larger work items into smaller work items and provides estimation

+ Acts as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI) working on-call to monitor system/product feature/service for degradation, downtime, or interruptions and gains approval to restore system/product/service for simple problems

+ Remains current in skills by investing time and effort into staying abreast of current developments that will improve the availability, reliability, efficiency, observability, and performance of products while also driving consistency in monitoring and operations at scale

** Qualifications*
* Required 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#, Powershell, or Python

+ 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 or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C++, C#, Powershell, or Python

+ OR 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++,…