Principal Software Engineering Manager - Fde

Microsoft Microsoft · Big Tech · London, United Kingdom +1 · Software Engineering

This role is for a Principal Software Engineering Manager at Microsoft, leading a multidisciplinary team in a Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) model. The team solves complex customer challenges by shipping production-ready solutions, leveraging AI across the development lifecycle. The manager will coach engineers, data scientists, and TPMs, and champion AI-forward hypervelocity engineering, applying responsible AI practices and integrating emerging AI capabilities into customer solutions.

What you'd actually do

  1. Lead a multidisciplinary engineering team, owning a portfolio of work to maximize customer and Microsoft value through strong portfolio and delivery leadership.
  2. Provide clear coaching, career development, and performance support for engineers across software engineering, technical program management, and data science, fostering growth in a multidisciplinary environment.
  3. Serve as a player‑coach by taking on selected engagements, modeling engineering fundamentals, customer‑obsessed execution, and inclusive, cross‑discipline collaboration.
  4. Partner with leadership and discipline managers to ensure healthy team rhythms and strong operational excellence across engagements.
  5. Contribute to a culture of continuous learning by elevating engineering practices, sharing reusable patterns and accelerators, and strengthening our multidisciplinary operating model.

Skills

Required

  • 4-5+ years people management experience
  • Experience partnering directly with customers or internal stakeholders to deliver solutions end-to-end
  • Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or related technical discipline OR equivalent experience

Nice to have

  • Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field
  • 4-6+ years people management experience
  • 3-5+ years customer-facing, project-delivery experience, professional services, and/or consulting experience
  • Experience designing, deploying, and operating AI or LLM-based solutions, including prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented approaches, model tuning, evaluation, data quality, performance monitoring, and use of cloud AI platforms
  • Enjoy travel and are comfortable with travel up to 25%

What the JD emphasized

  • shipping production-ready solutions in days, not months
  • AI-forward hypervelocity engineering
  • applying the latest advancements in AI to deliver high-impact outcomes at scale
  • Experience designing, deploying, and operating AI or LLM-based solutions, including prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented approaches, model tuning, evaluation, data quality, performance monitoring, and use of cloud AI platforms

Other signals

  • applying the mindset and tooling across the entire development lifecycle
  • deliver high-impact outcomes at scale
  • Champion AI‑forward hypervelocity engineering
  • integrating emerging AI capabilities into customer solutions and delivery