Principal Software Engineering Manager

Microsoft Microsoft · Big Tech · Hyderabad, TS, IN · Software Engineering

This role is for a Principal Software Engineering Manager at Microsoft's Core AI division, specifically on the Agentic Core Services Team. The team builds the cloud-native, distributed platform for developing, executing, and managing agentic applications at scale. The role involves leading and developing a team of engineers, driving strategic clarity, fostering engineering alignment, delivering cohesive end-to-end experiences, building foundational capabilities, championing customer-centric development, and leading live site excellence for large-scale distributed systems. The focus is on enabling developers to build intelligent, autonomous, and enterprise-grade AI agents, integrating multi-modal capabilities into agentic applications.

What you'd actually do

  1. Manage and coach engineers across levels, foster collaboration and inclusion, and drive career growth through mentoring and feedback.
  2. Leverage data-driven insights and competitive intelligence to inform product direction, identify opportunities, and guide decision-making.
  3. Work with the engineering teams and partner organizations by driving clarity, alignment, and shared ownership of technical direction
  4. Collaborate closely with partner teams—including experience, SDK, and platform groups—to ensure seamless integration and delivery of features across the stack
  5. Contribute to and lead the development of core platform components and reusable building blocks that accelerate team velocity and product innovation.

Skills

Required

  • Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field
  • 8+ years of experience designing, building, and operating production-grade software and services at scale
  • 2+ years of experience recruiting and managing technical teams, including performance management
  • 1+ year(s) of demonstrated experience in distributed systems, observability tooling, and operational excellence

Nice to have

  • Experience managing managers or multiple engineering teams in a global environment.
  • Demonstrated expertise in solving complex technical challenges in one or more domains such as distributed systems, AI/ML infrastructure, developer platforms, or cloud services.
  • Experience engaging with customers during integration or deployment phases, with a focus on delivering value and incorporating feedback into product evolution.

What the JD emphasized

  • enterprise-grade AI agents
  • large-scale distributed systems
  • production-grade software and services at scale
  • operational excellence

Other signals

  • building the cloud-native, distributed platform that powers the development, execution, and management of agentic applications at scale
  • provide the foundational infrastructure and runtime systems that enable developers to build intelligent, autonomous, and enterprise-grade AI agents
  • integrating the latest breakthroughs in multi-modal capabilities (text, audio, video) into real-world agentic applications