Overview
We are looking for a Principal Software Engineering Manager to lead engineering teams and grow the People Skills Services—a foundational capability that enables skills experiences, extensibility, and partner integrations across the employee lifecycle. Skills experiences are built for (1) leaders to drive strategic workforce planning and AI transformation, and (2) end users to upskill and share skills for career advancement.
This role is scoped at the Principal level, with accountability for multi‑team impact, cross‑org technical leadership, and changing the momentum of how skills intelligence is built and consumed across the organization. Success in this role is defined by outcomes delivered through others, durable services decisions, and sustained operational excellence.
As a Principal Software Engineer Manager, you’ll go deep on enduring services problems: trusted skills data foundations (quality, lineage, privacy), scalable enrichment and indexing services (latency, cost, iteration loops), and extensible consumption surfaces (APIs, contracts, partner onboarding) that power leader scenarios (strategic workforce planning, AI transformation) and user scenarios (upskilling, career mobility).
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
Engineering Leadership
- Lead, coach, and grow a senior engineering organization, including Senior and Principal engineers.
- Create clarity on goals, success metrics, and execution strategy across teams.
- Actively develop talent, manage performance, and build strong succession pipelines.
- Model Microsoft leadership principles: Create Clarity, Generate Energy, Deliver Success.
Technical & Services Leadership
- Provide hands‑on technical leadership on large‑scale, distributed systems for skills data services, enrichment, and AI‑powered experiences (in partnership with applied AI/inference teams).
- Drive architectural decisions that balance velocity, reliability, privacy, and extensibility.
- Lead resolution of complex, cross‑team technical challenges and architectural dependencies.
- Serve as a technical escalation point and architectural authority for the services.
Cross‑Org Influence & Collaboration
- Partner deeply with Product and Partner Teams.
- Influence roadmap alignment across dependent teams and partner organizations.
- Represent the services in cross‑org design reviews and strategic discussions.
- Broker alignment where priorities, constraints, or incentives conflict.
Operational Excellence
- Own service reliability, live‑site health, and operational readiness.
- Drive measurable improvements in performance, scalability, security, and cost efficiency. ‘Establish and enforce best practices across CI/CD, observability, incident management, and quality.
- Ensure teams operate with strong end‑to‑end ownership from design through operations.
Artificial Intelligence
- Stay ahead with org and industry trends on AI tools to help bring the best practices in the team.
- Takes the new AI thinking with data backed productivity gains across-M2 orgs.
Qualifications
**Required Qualifications: **
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.
Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 10+ 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.
4+ years people management experience.
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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.**