Principal Software Engineer - Azure Storage

Overview

As AI-driven applications, intelligent agents, analytics platforms, and mission-critical enterprise workloads continue to transform every industry, the demand for resilient, globally distributed data infrastructure has never been greater. Azure Storage Geo Replication is a cornerstone of Microsoft's cloud platform, safeguarding customer data and ensuring continuous availability across regions at massive scale.

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer - Azure Storage to help define and build the next generation of geo-resiliency, replication, data protection, and business continuity capabilities for Azure Storage. In this role, you will tackle some of the most complex challenges in cloud computing; enabling AI workloads to operate reliably across regions, protecting exabytes of data, and driving innovations that help customers maintain trust in their most valuable asset: their data.

Azure Storage stores and protects exabytes of customer data across regions worldwide. The Geo Replication team is responsible for developing the technologies that provide industry-leading durability, availability, disaster recovery, and regional resilience. This role offers the opportunity to influence the technical direction of one of Microsoft's largest cloud platforms while solving some of the most challenging problems in distributed systems at planetary scale.

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

• Define and drive the long-term technical strategy, architecture, and roadmap for Azure Storage Geo Replication
• Drive architecture decisions across data replication, failover orchestration, business continuity, and recovery capabilities
• Partner with engineering, product, and platform teams across Azure to deliver strategic investments and customer value
• Champion operational excellence through telemetry, automation, observability, resiliency testing, and incident management practices
• Lead adoption of AI-assisted engineering and intelligent operations to accelerate development, improve reliability, and enhance service health
• Represent the team in executive reviews, customer engagements, strategic planning forums, and cross-organizational architecture discussions

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

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

• Master'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 Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
• OR equivalent experience
• Experience building distributed storage systems, databases, or infrastructure services at scale
• Expertise in geo-distributed architectures, data replication, failover technologies, and resilience engineering
• Experience applying machine learning or AI techniques to service operations, anomaly detection, forecasting, incident management, and intelligent automation
• Understanding of durability guarantees, consistency models, disaster recovery, business continuity, and regional failover solutions

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Pay and benefits

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 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 $188,000 - $304,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.