Overview
This role is open to candidates across Canada who are able and willing to relocate to Vancouver upon hire.
Are you an **Engineering Manager **already at the forefront of agentic AI — someone who has used agents to build products, led teams shipping agentic tooling, and formed strong opinions about what great looks like in this space? Do you want to lead the team that owns the agentic engineering platform being adopted across all of Microsoft? Do you want to build an environment where engineers are empowered to push the frontier of what's possible with AI, and where you're dogfooding the very platform your team builds? If so, we'd love to talk with you about this opportunity!
Our AI team is a part of the larger ES365 (Microsoft 365 Engineering Systems) team — and we own the agentic engineering platform being adopted across all of Microsoft. ES365 owns the tools and systems used by thousands of Microsoft developers who innovate across the company's largest codebases, from source control and check-in experience to build, validation, and deployment automation. This gives us a unique position to define what AI-powered developer productivity looks like at Microsoft scale.
The ES365 AI team is 100% focused on pushing that frontier. We build the agentic platform itself and the experiences on top of it. The developers and codebase owners who use these tools are your customers, just down the hall — giving us a tight feedback loop and the domain expertise to move fast. For additional context, example workstreams have included AI-assisted large-scale codebase refactoring, automated package integrations, deep architectural Q&A over codebases, and human-in-the-loop directed code changes.
We're a growing team looking for an experienced Software Engineering Manager to lead and grow our engineering talent. In this role, you'll partner closely with principal engineers and technical leads to shape the direction of the ESAI platform, ensure the team is operating with clarity and momentum, and build the kind of environment where engineers do their best work. You'll also serve as a connector — bridging our team's work with partner teams across Microsoft who are tackling related problems in AI-powered developer productivity.
If you are excited about AI's potential and want to lead a team on the front lines of AI-Powered developer efficiency at Microsoft, we want you in ES365 AI.
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
- Lead, grow, and retain a team of talented software engineers working on AI-powered developer productivity tooling.
- Partner with technical leads and principal engineers to set team direction, prioritize work, and ensure alignment with broader ES365 and Microsoft goals.
- Drive clarity on team goals, project milestones, and success metrics — translating strategy into executable plans.
- Foster a culture of experimentation and resilience, where the team feels empowered to try novel AI approaches, learn from failures, and iterate quickly.
- Own the career development of your engineers — providing regular coaching, feedback, and growth opportunities.
- Champion the use of AI in your team's daily workflows and stay current on the evolving landscape of AI developer tools and agentic systems.
- Build and maintain strong cross-team partnerships with other groups at Microsoft working on AI, developer tooling, and engineering systems.
- Recruit and hire exceptional engineering talent to grow the team.
- Contribute positively to a culture where everyone can bring their full and authentic self and where we do our best work as a result.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications:
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ 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 managing software engineering teams, including hiring, performance management, and career development.
A solid software engineering background — you don't need to be writing production code daily, but you should be able to engage deeply with technical decisions, review designs, and earn credibility with high-level engineers.
Track record of delivering software projects end-to-end: scoping, planning, shipping, and iterating along with solid communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to operate effectively across engineering, product, and leadership stakeholders while being comfortable leading in ambiguous, fast-moving problem spaces where best practices are still being established.
Other Requirements
- Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.
Preferred Qualifications:
Personal experience using AI-powered developer tooling and coding assistants, such as:
- GitHub Copilot and Copilot Workspace — AI pair programming, CLI, and task-oriented development
- Claude Code — agentic CLI for autonomous software engineering tasks
- OpenAI Codex / ChatGPT — LLM-based code generation and explanation
- Cursor — AI-native code editor with inline generation and multi-file edits
Prior experience using agentic plugins, agents, skills, hooks, etc.
Hands-on experience (as an IC or manager) building systems that leverage Agent SDKs, large language models (LLMs), prompt engineering, or AI orchestration frameworks.
Familiarity with agentic AI development patterns — multi-step reasoning, tool/function calling, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and human-in-the-loop workflows.
Ability to evaluate and form informed opinions on emerging AI developer tools, and translate those insights into team strategy and best practices.
Background in developer tooling, build systems, CI/CD pipelines, or engineering systems at scale.
#GXP #GXPHiring
Software Engineering M5 - The typical base pay range for this role across Canada is CAD $142,400 - CAD $257,500 per year.
Find additional pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/canada-pay-information.html
Software Engineering M5 - L'échelle salariale de base typique pour ce rôle dans l'ensemble du Canada est de 142,400 $ CAD à 257,500 $ CAD par année.
Pour plus d'information au sujet de la rémunération, veuillez cliquer ici: https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/canada-pay-information.html
Ce poste sera ouvert pendant au moins cinq jours et les candidatures seront acceptées de façon continue jusqu’à ce que le poste soit pourvu.
This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.
Microsoft est un employeur offrant l’égalité d’accès à l’emploi. Tous les candidats qualifiés seront pris en considération pour l’emploi, sans égard à l’âge, à l’ascendance, à la citoyenneté, à la couleur, aux congés médicaux ou familiaux, à l’identité ou à l’expression de genre, aux renseignements génétiques, à l’état d’immigration, à l’état matrimonial, à l’état de santé, à l’origine nationale, à un éventuel handicap physique ou mental, à l’affiliation politique, au statut de vétéran protégé ou au statut militaire, à la race, à l’ethnie, à la religion, au sexe (y compris la grossesse), à l’orientation sexuelle ou à toute autre caractéristique protégée par les lois, ordonnances et règlements locaux applicables. Si vous avez besoin d’aide avec des accommodements religieux et/ou d’un accommodement raisonnable en raison d’un handicap pendant le processus de candidature, apprenez-en plus sur la **demande d’accommodement.**
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.**