Principal Forward Deployed Engineer - Software Engineering (AI)

Location: United States; remote, with 0 days per week in-office

Base pay: $142,800–$274,800 per year across the U.S.; $188,000–$304,200 per year in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City metropolitan area.

Company

Microsoft Frontier Company Engineering delivers production-ready software solutions for complex organizations through a Forward Deployed Engineering model.

What you will do

• Shape customer opportunities and translate business needs into actionable technical approaches.
• Build and deliver production-grade solutions in customer environments with end-to-end ownership.
• Deliver iterative, high-impact solutions quickly in ambiguous and fast-moving environments.
• Engage senior stakeholders, build trust, align priorities, and guide technical and business decisions.
• Apply industry and customer context to tailor solutions and drive sustained impact.
• Prepare and transition engagements to FDE crews with clear scope and technical direction.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field and 6+ years of technical engineering experience with coding, or equivalent experience.
• Experience coding in languages including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python.
• Work authorization sponsorship is not available for this role.
• Comfort with customer-facing technical delivery and collaboration with senior stakeholders.
• Willingness to travel up to 25%.

Nice to have

• Master’s degree and 8+ years of technical engineering experience, or bachelor’s degree and 12+ years of experience, or equivalent experience.
• Hands-on experience building and deploying LLM-based systems.
• Experience ensuring AI model quality and performance using modern cloud AI platforms.

Culture & Benefits

• Growth mindset, innovation, collaboration, respect, integrity, and accountability.
• Inclusive workplace culture focused on enabling people and organizations to achieve more.
• Benefits and additional compensation may be available depending on the role.