Principal Software Engineer - AI Frameworks

The Microsoft AI Frameworks team developsthe software, performance systems, and engineering tools that enablestate-of-the-artAI models to run reliably and efficiently at cloud scale. We work across model architectures, frameworks, compilers, runtimes, libraries, observability, benchmarking, and hardware platforms-including NVIDIA and AMD GPUs and Microsoft silicon. Our engineers,partnerwith model developers, researchers, hardware teams, and production services to accelerate model onboarding, improve performance and reliability, reduce deployment time and hardware footprint, andturn performance insights into durable platform capabilities.

This is a hands-ontechnical leadershiprole foran engineerwhocanestablishdirection and lead teams throughambiguous, end-to-end systemschallenges.Successful candidates combine strong software engineering fundamentals withdeepcuriosity about AI workloads,usedisciplined measurementtoguide decisions, and create alignmentacross organizational boundaries to delivermeasurableproduction impact.

As a Principal Software Engineer - AI Frameworks, you will serve as a technical lead for high-impact initiatives spanning AI frameworks, performance engineering, benchmarking, and tooling. You will establish technical direction, make consequential architectural decisions, and lead engineers across teams through the design and delivery of solutions that improve model velocity, platform efficiency, and production reliability. You will also identify systemic opportunities, align stakeholders around durable architectures and success measures, and remain hands-on in critical areas of implementation.

At Microsoft, our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more guides how we partner with customers to deliver trusted, impactful solutions. With a growth mindset culture, we innovate responsibly and measure success by shared progress people, teams, and customers. Join us to do meaningful work that changes the world and helps shapewhat'snext for everyone.

• Own thetechnical vision, architecture,roadmap,and multi-releaseexecutionstrategy for critical AI framework, performance, benchmarking, or developer-productivity capabilities.

• Lead technical alignment across teams by shapingarchitecture and priorities, resolving competing requirements, and holdingresearchers, product groups, infrastructure owners, and hardware partnersaccountable toclear decisions,execution plans, and measurable outcomes.

• Build technical leadership capacity across the organization by mentoring engineers, developing emerging technical leads, establishing high standards for quality and maintainability, and creating an inclusive engineering culture in which teams can execute effectively at scale.

• Steerambiguous, cross-stack investigations and investments spanning models, frameworks, compilers, runtimes, systems, services, and silicon; set technicalpriorities, resolve trade-offs, and drive teams to decisions.

• Provide hands-on technical leadership by setting the engineering approach,delegatingand unblocking critical work, and directly contributing through prototypes, critical-path implementation, design and code reviews, complex debugging, and operational readiness.

• Spearheadcommon measurement, automation, observability, and engineering mechanisms that turn one-off analyses into scalable platform capabilities.

• Drivemeasurable improvements in model onboarding velocity, runtime performance, reliability, hardwareutilization, and Azure capacity efficiency.

• Embody Microsoft's culture and values.