Job Overview

Microsoft is hiring a Principal Software Engineer in Hyderabad for a full-time opportunity within the Windows engineering organization. This role focuses on building and improving Windows features that serve commercial customers, partners, and users at global scale.

The position is suited to senior and principal-level engineers who are highly comfortable with C++ and enjoy solving complex engineering problems. You will work on software and services that become part of Windows, contributing to feature development, architecture, performance, reliability, maintainability, and production operations.

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will work across teams to understand customer and business requirements, define technical approaches, design scalable systems, implement high-quality code, and guide engineering execution. The role also includes technical leadership, mentoring, operational ownership, and collaboration with product managers and partner engineering teams.

The Windows organization is also embracing modern engineering practices and AI-powered development tools. This provides an opportunity to work on widely used technology while continuing to explore new approaches to software development and system engineering.

Key Responsibilities

• Work with stakeholders and product partners to understand user needs and translate them into technical requirements.
• Design and develop Windows features and services intended for large-scale customer and partner use.
• Create technical design documents, identify dependencies, and establish implementation approaches for products, services, applications, or platforms.
• Write, optimize, debug, refactor, and reuse production-quality code with a strong focus on performance and maintainability.
• Apply engineering practices that improve reliability, availability, efficiency, observability, scalability, and operational performance.
• Collaborate with product managers and partner teams to shape project plans, release plans, and engineering priorities.
• Take operational ownership as a Designated Responsible Individual when required.
• Monitor products and services for degradation, downtime, or interruptions and coordinate appropriate recovery actions.
• Investigate technical issues and contribute to solutions for both straightforward and complex production problems.
• Identify opportunities to improve monitoring, operations, system consistency, performance, and engineering efficiency.
• Provide technical leadership to engineers and mentor team members through design discussions, code reviews, and practical guidance.
• Build strong technical relationships across Windows and other Microsoft product groups.
• Evaluate new technologies, engineering patterns, and development approaches that can improve product outcomes.
• Balance business value with cost, reliability, scalability, maintainability, and long-term engineering quality.

Required Skills

Strong software engineering fundamentals are essential for this role. Candidates should have substantial professional experience developing software using one or more programming languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python.

C++ is particularly important because the position involves building Windows features and services. Strong design, coding, debugging, and problem-solving abilities are expected. You should be able to understand complex systems, identify technical dependencies, and make engineering decisions that support long-term product quality.

The role also requires the ability to work effectively across organizational boundaries. Engineers should be comfortable collaborating with product managers, partner engineering teams, and other stakeholders while maintaining clear technical ownership.

Preferred Skills

Experience with cross-group architecture and technical coordination is valuable. Candidates who have worked on large-scale products, services, or platforms and understand reliability, observability, performance optimization, and production operations may be especially well aligned.

A customer-focused and innovative mindset is preferred, along with a strong commitment to engineering craftsmanship. The ability to mentor other engineers and help improve team practices is also important for success at the principal level.

Education

The minimum educational requirement is a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field, combined with 6+ years of technical engineering experience. Equivalent professional experience may also qualify.

Preferred education and experience combinations include a Bachelor's degree with 10+ years of technical engineering experience or a Master's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field with 8+ years of experience.

Experience

The required minimum is 6+ years of technical engineering experience involving coding. The preferred profile may include 8 to 10+ years of relevant experience depending on educational background. Candidates should demonstrate a strong record of software development, technical problem-solving, system design, debugging, and engineering collaboration.

Required Technologies

• C++
• C
• C#
• Java
• JavaScript
• Python
• AI-powered software development tools
• Software design patterns
• System design
• Monitoring
• Observability
• Production operations

Soft Skills

Principal-level success requires strong communication, collaboration, leadership, and mentoring abilities. You should be comfortable explaining complex technical decisions to engineers and non-engineering stakeholders and building productive relationships across teams.

The role also calls for customer focus, adaptability, ownership, and a willingness to work through ambiguity. A strong engineering mindset means considering not only whether software works, but also whether it is reliable, scalable, maintainable, efficient, and cost-effective.

Benefits of Working in this Role

This opportunity offers exposure to Windows engineering at global scale, where software features can affect a very large and diverse customer base. Engineers can work on commercially important Windows capabilities while collaborating with multiple product and partner teams.

The role also provides opportunities to strengthen architecture, technical leadership, mentoring, reliability engineering, and production operations skills. Working with modern development practices and AI-powered engineering tools can further broaden the technical toolkit of an experienced software engineer.

Work Mode

The position is full-time and follows a hybrid working arrangement with three days per week in the office. Travel is listed as less than 25%.

Location

The listed job location is Hyderabad, Telangana, India.

Who Should Apply

This role is suitable for Principal Software Engineers, Senior C++ Developers, Windows Software Engineers, Systems Software Engineers, Platform Engineers, and experienced software professionals with strong engineering fundamentals.

Candidates with substantial C++ development experience and a background in large-scale software, system design, debugging, reliability, or production engineering should consider this opportunity. Engineers who enjoy technical leadership, mentoring, cross-team collaboration, and solving difficult customer-focused problems may be particularly well suited.

Career Growth

The role provides opportunities to deepen expertise in large-scale software engineering while expanding technical leadership and architectural influence. Engineers can strengthen their ability to guide technical direction, coordinate across teams, mentor other developers, and take ownership of production reliability.

Experience gained in system design, performance optimization, operational excellence, customer-focused engineering, and cross-group collaboration can support continued growth toward broader technical leadership and architecture responsibilities.

Application Advice

When applying, emphasize your strongest software engineering projects, especially those involving C++, system-level development, large-scale services, performance optimization, debugging, or production reliability. Describe the technical problems you solved and explain the engineering decisions that led to successful outcomes.

Highlight experience working across teams, influencing architecture, mentoring engineers, managing technical dependencies, and communicating with product or business stakeholders. If you have owned production systems or acted as an operational escalation point, include concrete examples of how you improved reliability, monitoring, or recovery.

Your resume should clearly demonstrate coding ability, design skills, debugging expertise, engineering craftsmanship, and customer focus. Avoid listing technologies without context; instead, connect each major technology to the projects and outcomes where you used it.