Principal Software Engineer

** Overview*
* Windows + Devices powers experiences for over a billion users worldwide, building the platforms and products that create experiences across Microsoft and leading Windows and Surface products through deep partnership across the company and with OEM partners. The Windows Engineering System is the backbone that lets Windows engineers design, code, build, validate, and ship at massive scale, securely and with high quality.

The Build team creates and operates build orchestration and execution systems, lab infrastructure, signal production and analysis capabilities, and developer tooling that enable engineers across Microsoft to produce Windows and other foundational software at significant scale.

Our systems connect source code, dependencies, compilers, security controls, artifacts, diagnostics, and distributed infrastructure across a large and continuously evolving engineering ecosystem.

We partner with Windows product teams and Engineering Systems organizations to make builds faster, more reliable, secure, observable, and easier to use. Our work spans modern services and pipelines as well as mission-critical native tools and long-lived codebases. Improvements delivered by this team benefit thousands of developers and millions of build actions.

We are seeking a  
** Principal Software Engineer
** who will provide technical leadership across Build and the broader Windows engineering ecosystem. You will define architectural direction, lead complex multi-quarter initiatives, and solve ambiguous engineering problems that span organizational and technical boundaries. You will remain deeply hands-on while influencing engineering strategy, raising technical standards, developing engineering talent, and enabling engineers and teams to deliver at greater scale.

This role requires broad systems thinking, solid engineering judgment, and the ability to balance modernization with the compatibility and operational continuity required by foundational Windows engineering systems. You will shape how Microsoft builds software by converting recurring developer and operational challenges into durable platform capabilities, diagnostics, guardrails, and engineering practices.

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*
* As a Principal Software Engineer on the Windows Engineering Systems Build team, you will:

+ Define and drive the technical strategy and architecture for foundational build tools, services, and engineering workflows used across Windows and partner organizations.

+ Lead multi-quarter initiatives that modernize critical engineering systems while improving reliability, performance, security, maintainability, observability, and developer experience.

+ Identify systemic opportunities across the engineering ecosystem and translate ambiguous business, developer, and operational needs into clear technical direction and durable platform investments.

+ Design and deliver solutions across build orchestration, distributed execution, caching, compilers, tool chains, dependency management, artifact production, diagnostics, and engineering infrastructure.

+ Diagnose complex and high-impact failures across organizational and technology boundaries, driving investigations from initial evidence through root cause, remediation, and prevention.

+ Establish architectural principles, engineering standards, and technical decision frameworks that enable teams to evolve critical systems safely and consistently.

+ Partner with Windows product teams, security organizations, and Engineering Systems teams to integrate new capabilities while protecting compatibility, scale, and operational continuity.

+ Establish measurable success criteria, telemetry, and operational signals that make reliability, performance, adoption, regressions, and customer impact visible.

+ Advance secure software-supply-chain practices, including dependency governance, provenance, artifact integrity, policy enforcement, and compliance automation.

+ Provide technical leadership during significant operational events, helping teams understand failure modes, make sound tradeoffs, and implement systemic reliability improvements.

+ Use and…