Principal Software Engineering Manager

Would you be excited about building a global-scale, Kubernetes-based service platform that powers Microsoft's productivity workloads? Do you want to lead a team of talented and motivated engineers who use cutting-edge technology and best practices to deliver high-quality solutions? Are you passionate about making distributed systems secure? Do you want to challenge yourself taking on a role to be a security leader for entire COSMIC? If so, join us on the COSMIC team and help us shape the future of Microsoft's cloud infrastructure.

The COSMIC team, part of the M365 Substrate Core organization, has a bold mission to standardize how we deliver services and build a modern Kubernetes-based compute fabric with turn-key geo-presence, security, high availability, fault isolation and automated cloud build out. COSMIC, which stands for Containers on Substrate-Managed Intelligent Clusters, is a strategic bet we are making to modernize our compute platform and improve the agility, security, compliance, and COGS of our services in the Experience and Devices division.

We are seeking a Principal Software Engineering Manager to help us take the platform to the next level and deliver on our promises of fabric unification and turn-key developer experience. As a Principal Software Engineering Manager, you will lead a team of talented engineers building secure, scalable, and highly reliable services that protect critical platforms and customer data. You will partner closely with security, privacy, compliance, and platform teams to embed security into COSMIC.

In this role you will be working with multiple teams across COSMIC and M365 Substrate Core defining and building solutions to deliver a high-level, prescriptive geo-scale application platform which standardizes how we deliver enterprise-ready services to the Microsoft cloud.

You will work extensively with Microsoft Azure technologies while also using industry standard open source such as Kubernetes and related components. You will provide effective mentoring, coaching and technical leadership to a team of engineers, and will also have opportunities to collaborate with numerous teams across Microsoft and have significant impact on hundreds of critical Microsoft services running on the COSMIC platform.

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.

• Lead and grow a high‑performing engineering team with a strong security mindset through hiring, coaching, performance management, and career development.
• Ensure systems meet internal security, privacy, and compliance requirements while remaining pragmatic and developer‑friendly.
• Represent the engineering team in cross‑org security reviews, design discussions, and leadership forums.
• Own and enforce security requirements across the SDLC, including threat modeling, secure code reviews, dependency management, and vulnerability remediation.
• Oversee partnership with appropriate stakeholders (e.g., project manager, technical lead) to determine user requirements within and across teams for multiple solutions or product lines.
• Lead the resolution of complex site incidents and oversee for Designated Responsible Individuals (DRI) and direct the work of other engineers across product lines.
• Keep informed of and communicate new standards to ensure that the product development and scaling to customer requirements and apply best practices for meeting scaling needs and performance expectations and holds accountability for products that do not meet expectations.

• 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: