Principal Software Engineer - Performance

The Artificial Intelligence Performance team at Microsoft develops AI software that enables running AI modelsefficiently. We collaborate with our hardware teams and partners, both internal and external, andoperateat the intersection of AI algorithmic innovation, purpose-built AI hardware, systems, and software. We are a team of highly capable and motivated people that pride themselves on a collaborative and inclusive culture. We own inference performance of OpenAI and other state of the art LLM models and work directly with OpenAI on the models hosted on the Azure OpenAI service serving some of the largest workloads on the planet with trillions of inferences per day in major Microsoft products, including Office, Windows, Bing, SQL Server, and Dynamics.

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 -Performance,you will serve as a technical lead for high-impact initiatives spanning AI frameworks, performance engineering, benchmarking, and tooling. You will establish technical direction, drive 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.

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.

• 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,establishinghigh standardsfor 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.

RequiredQualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Scienceor a related technical field and 8+ years of technical engineering experience coding in languages such asC++ or Python,

• • OR equivalent experience.

Other Requirements:

• Abilityto meet Microsoft,customerand/or government security screening requirements arerequiredfor this role. These requirements include but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will berequiredto pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

PreferredQualifications:

• Master's Degree in Computer Scienceor related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to,C++ or Python

• • ORBachelor's Degree in Computer Scienceor related technical field AND 15+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to,C++or Python

• • OR equivalent experience.

• Demonstrated experience serving as a technical lead for complex cross-team initiatives, including setting strategy,drivingarchitectural decisions, aligning stakeholders, and driving execution from concept through production.

• Robust/extensiveexperience designing and shipping complex, high-performance or distributed software systems

• Deepfoundation in software architecture, computer architecture, and accelerator-aware optimization

• Advancedexperience with AI/ML workloads and frameworks

• Proventrackrecordof creating reusable platforms, influencing seniortechnical and businessstakeholders,developing othertechnical leaders, and scaling engineering practices across teams.

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