Principal Software Engineer - Growth (CoreAI)

• We’rebuildingAIfirst growth and experimentation systemsthat scale across Microsoft. This role is about designing foundational engineeringsystems (instrumentation, experimentation, rollout, and decisioning) that let teams ship, measure, learn fasterwith higher confidence.

• As aPrincipal Growth Engineer inCoreAI,you’lldrive the technical strategy for how wemeasure, experiment, and scaleAI experiences across worldclass products - whileremainingdeep in the details and landing meaningful changes daily.

• At this level, impact comes from buildingrepeatable systemsand raising the engineering bar: better experiment quality, better telemetry, safer rollouts, and clearer business outcomes - delivered through pragmatic execution and deep technical judgment.

AboutCoreAI

• CoreAI- Platform and ToolsisMicrosoft’s AIfirst engineering organization, created to build theendtoend Copilot & AI stackpowering products likeGitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code.

• Our mission is toempower every developer to shape the future with AI, accelerating how AI applications are built, deployed, and improved atglobalscale.

Responsibilities

WhatYou’llDo

• Own growth through engineering excellence and experimentation - at a systems level

• Architect and buildpaved pathsfor online experimentation: standardized metrics, guardrails, analysis workflows, and rollout automation that improve reliability and decision quality across teams

• Lead multiworkstream initiatives that span teams/products (e.g., unified growth measurement, crosssurface funnels, experimentation quality improvements)

• Build and evolve core capabilities:telemetry foundations, experiment assignment/targeting, feature flighting, and risk controls (killswitches, guardrails, progressive delivery)

• Partner with Product, Data Science, Design, and Research to turn ambiguous goals intoshippable, measurable systems

• Stay close to the work: write production code, review designs/PRs, and coach others through architecture and implementation tradeoffs

• Proven ability to design and shipsystemic solutions(platforms, frameworks, primitives) that enable multiple teams to move faster - whileremainingdeeply handson and detailoriented

• Software engineering fundamentals with experience building, shipping, and operatingproduction services or client applicationsat scale

• Demonstrated technical leadership acrossarchitecture, service fundamentals, and quality(reliability, performance, operability, security, and maintainability)

• Track recordof translating ambiguous product/business problems intomeasurable engineering outcomes, with clear hypotheses, instrumentation, and decision criteria

• High data aptitude: comfortable with metrics, telemetry, and experimental analysis - and able to raise the bar on experimentation rigor and interpretation, * Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.

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

• 8+ yearsbuilding and shippinghighavailability featuresformultiregion, globally distributed systems(resiliency, failover, capacity planning)

• 4+ years of experience in experimentation with emphasis on quality: guardrails, bias detection, metric integrity, rollout risk management, and enterprise grade experimentation

• Demonstrated experience buildingexperimentation/measurement platforms(feature flags/flighting, assignment, metrics pipelines, analysis tooling) used by multiple teams

• Demonstrated experienceleaning heavily on AI to accelerate engineering velocity, including using AI tools to prototype, implement, debug, and iterate on production systems

• Crossteam influence: you create clarity, align stakeholders, and drive execution across organizational boundaries - without becoming a “piecemover”