Overview

Do you want to build a foundational platform that powers global AI experiences across languages? You will join the Azure AI Translation and Language team, developing large-scale distributed systems that enable reliable, high-performance translation and language services used across Microsoft products including infrastructure supporting large-scale model inference workloads. Our platform underpins real-time communication for millions of users worldwide.

As a Principal Software Development Engineer, you will lead the design and evolution of core infrastructure systems that support Azure AI translation and language services at scale. You’ll work on high-impact challenges across distributed systems, service reliability, and platform architecture. This role offers opportunities to shape foundational systems, drive engineering excellence, and operate in a flexible hybrid work environment.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, and we’re dedicated to this mission across every aspect of our company. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. Join us and help shape the future of the world.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and implementation of large-scale, distributed systems that power Azure AI translation and language services.

• Define and evolve platform architecture for high availability, scalability, and performance across global deployments.

• Drive improvements in reliability, fault tolerance, and operational excellence for mission-critical services.

• Build and enhance core infrastructure components such as service orchestration, workload management, and data pipelines.

• Establish best practices for service observability, monitoring, alerting, and incident response.

• Collaborate with partner teams (including applied science and product teams) to enable robust and scalable service integrations.

• Mentor engineers and set a high bar for system design, code quality, and engineering rigor across the team.

Qualifications Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field AND 6+ years of software development experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, or Rust

• 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:

• 5+ years of experience designing and building large-scale distributed systems or cloud infrastructure.

• Experience building and operating highly available services with strict requirements for latency, scalability, and reliability.

• Experience with cloud platforms (e.g., Azure) and service-oriented or microservices architectures.

• Experience building infrastructure for AI/ML services, such as model serving platforms, data processing systems, or training pipelines.

• Experience with system performance optimization, capacity planning, and cost-efficiency at scale.

• Experience designing globally distributed systems and handling multi-region deployments.

• Experience with reliability engineering practices, including incident management and postmortem analysis.

• Programming experience in Python.

• Master’s or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.

#coreai

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

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.