About this role
Principal Software Engineer
India, Telangana, Hyderabad
Job description
Company and benefits
Job number
200058487
Date posted
Oct 11, 2026
Work site
3 days / week in-office
Travel
Less than 25%
Profession
Software Engineering
Discipline
Software Engineering
Role type
Individual Contributor
Employment type
Full-Time
Overview
The Windows + Devices Fundamentals team improves the reliability, performance, responsiveness, battery life, memory efficiency, and overall health of Windows devices. We build and operate the services, telemetry systems, and data pipelines that transform signals from labs and the installed base into trustworthy metrics, actionable diagnostics, and measurable engineering improvements.
We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to define the technical direction for critical Windows Fundamentals data and service capabilities. You will shape architecture across backend services, telemetry platforms, data pipelines, metrics, and diagnostic workflows; solve the portfolio's most complex technical problems; and influence engineering investments that improve Windows health at scale.
This role is ideal for a deeply technical engineering leader who combines distributed-systems and data-platform expertise with solid product judgment, hands-on problem solving, and the ability to align and inspire engineers across organizational boundaries.
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 the technical strategy and architecture for Windows Fundamentals backend services, telemetry systems, data pipelines, metrics, cohort frameworks, and diagnostic capabilities.
- Lead the design of scalable systems for telemetry ingestion, transformation, orchestration, storage, health monitoring, analytics, diagnostics, and automated engineering workflows.
- Set technical standards for service reliability, security, compliance, privacy, observability, data quality, schema evolution, deployment safety, incident response, and operational excellence.
- Lead the most complex cross-system investigations involving large-scale telemetry, statistical analysis, systems debugging, service behavior, and Windows product-health signals.
- Create architectural simplifications, automation, and AI-assisted capabilities that detect issues earlier, reduce operational toil, and increase engineering leverage across Windows.
- Use data, customer insights, and business priorities to frame ambiguous problems, evaluate portfolio tradeoffs, manage technical risk, and drive measurable outcomes.
- Serve as a technical authority and hands-on contributor; mentor senior engineers, lead design reviews, build alignment across teams, and influence Windows engineering, data science, security, silicon, OEM, and service partners.
Qualifications
Required/Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 10+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python.
- OR equivalent experience.
- Extensive experience architecting and delivering backend services, distributed systems, data pipelines, telemetry platforms, large-scale analytics, or enginee