Are you an adept software engineer who is passionate about building infrastructure and enhancing service release operations to ensure they are safe, secure, and efficient? Do you enjoy leading innovative solutions to boost engineering productivity within an organization? Are you keen to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to secure, streamline, and improve the quality of developers' daily tasks? Do you like solving complex technical issues and collaborating with various teams across the company? If so, we have an excellent opportunity for you! We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join the Microsoft Teams Core Services team. This role focuses on improving our infrastructure and managing build and release activities for our core platform and backend services. The Core Services team is responsible for foundational services, underlying platforms, and key service fundamentals. Microsoft Teams is rapidly expanding, becoming the fastest-growing product in Microsoft's history, boasting over 330 million active users worldwide. The Core Services team plays a vital role in the Teams backend by developing a resilient infrastructure that supports cost-effective hyper-scaling, enables expansion into various specialized clouds currently under development, and ensures secure and efficient build and release processes. Our work culture is inclusive, casual, and dynamic. You will collaborate with a diverse cross-functional team of engineers, technical program managers, and stakeholders to define the vision, architecture, and roadmap for service infrastructure, builds, and release operations. Additionally, you will mentor and guide other engineers, promote best practices, and ensure the quality and reliability of our systems. 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** **Technical Leadership:** Lead build and release operations with a focus on safety, security, and performance. Mentor and guide a team of engineers to ensure best practices are followed. **Build and Release Operations:** Oversee the entire build and release process, ensuring services are delivered efficiently and securely. Implement and maintain continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, automate workflows, and ensure high availability. **Security and Compliance:** Ensure all build and release operations meet the highest standards of security and compliance. Implement security best practices and conduct regular audits and assessments. **Performance Optimization:** Continuously monitor and optimize the performance of build and release processes. Identify and resolve bottlenecks and implement improvements. **Engineering Thrive:** Develop and implement strategies to enhance the work environment and productivity of service engineers. Foster a culture of continuous learning and development. Explore and embrace AI technologies to improve developer productivity. **Collaboration:** Work closely with cross-functional teams, including development, Technical Program Managers (TPMs), and operations, to ensure seamless integration and delivery of services. Build coalitions of support among teams across the organization to accomplish challenging projects. **Continuous Improvement:** Participate in on-call rotations to respond to incidents and highly complex issues by identifying and troubleshooting the issue, deploying appropriate fixes, and implementing automations to prevent recurring problems. Ensure adherence to and implementation of security, privacy, and compliance standards. **Qualifications** **Required Qualifications:** + Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related technical field AND 6+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python + OR equivalent experience. + 4+ years of experience in automating and streamlining the deployment, configuration, and maintenance of backend services and infrastructure using CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure as code. + 4+ years of experience with cloud technologies and architecture, with practical experience in designing, building, deploying, and managing backend services on major cloud platforms. + 2+ years of experience mentoring team members. **Other Requirements:** Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: + **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:** + Experience in CI/CD tools, automation frameworks, and cloud platforms. + Understanding of security best practices and performance optimization techniques. + 4+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a proven track record of delivering quality and scalable services and infrastructure using cloud-native technologies and best practices. + Experience in applying microservices, serverless, event-driven, and RESTful architectures and patterns. + Experience in applying modern software engineering practices and tools, such as Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Git, Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD), Test Driven Development (TDD). + Willingness and ability to respectfully challenge the status quo, using negotiation and collaboration to influence others across organizational silos. + Problem-solving, debugging, and troubleshooting skills, with a data-driven and customer-centric approach. + Collaboration, and leadership skills. + A growth mindset, with the willingness to learn new technologies and domains. + A passion for creating a positive impact for our customers and society, and a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $137,600 - $267,000 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $180,400 - $294,000 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay (https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/us-corporate-pay.html) Microsoft will accept applications for the role until November 6, 2024. \#SWE24 Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, 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 and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations (https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html) .