Principal Software Engineer (AI)

TL;DR

Principal Software Engineer (AI): Enhancing the core capabilities of the Ads serving stack, powering advertisements across Microsoft services, including Bing Search and Edge browser with an accent on large-scale machine learning inference for ad ranking and real-time bidding infrastructure. Focus on optimizing performance down to the millisecond and building scalable infrastructure for containerized services.

Location: Expected to work from the office at least four days per week if living within a 50-mile commute of a designated Microsoft office in the U.S.

Salary: USD $139,900 – $274,800 per year.

Company

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

What you will do

• Design and develop large-scale, distributed systems—including CPU and GPU ranking platforms—to support real-time processing of millions of ad requests per second.
• Lead architecture discussions, create technical design documents, and drive end-to-end solution planning across interconnected services.
• Implement features and enhancements with a focus on code quality, maintainability, and scalability.
• Serve as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI) for live-site operations on a rotational on-call basis.
• Guide testing strategies and quality assurance plans, including unit tests, automation, and telemetry-based diagnostics.
• Mentor engineers on software engineering best practices, reusable patterns, and tooling.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including C++, C#, Python OR equivalent experience.

Nice to have

• 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++, C#, Java, JavaScript, 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, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.
• Proven experience in designing, implementing, and validating deep learning systems for real-time online inference.
• Solid expertise in optimizing machine learning models for GPUs, including development of custom CUDA kernels for performance-critical workloads.
• Hands-on experience in designing, implementing, and scaling large-scale, distributed online systems with a deep understanding of system architecture is a must.
• Proven ability to profile, analyze, and optimize performance and capacity of native C++ systems in complex, high-throughput environments.

Culture & Benefits

• Employees come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize shared goals.
• Build on values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.