Principal Software Engineer

Technology, Data & Digital · Software & Web Development · Software Engineering

In short

Microsoft is seeking a Principal Software Engineer for their Zurich office to lead the evolution of Visual Studio Code and GitHub Copilot. This hybrid role involves hands-on technical leadership, tackling complex product and platform challenges, and mentoring engineers.

Responsibilities

Identify significant product opportunities and systemic engineering problems; set technical direction.
Prove approaches through prototypes, critical implementation, testing, and debugging.
Lead cross-team delivery across Microsoft and GitHub, resolving architectural disagreements and clarifying ownership.
Own outcomes beyond release, using adoption, quality signals, and user feedback to guide investment.
Improve engineering effectiveness through testing strategies, performance work, and shared design patterns.
Lead technical discussions in the open, investigate community-reported issues, and work directly with developers.
Mentor experienced engineers and technical leaders, helping them develop judgment.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.
Demonstrated technical leadership across multiple teams, including setting direction and building alignment.
Solid hands-on coding and design skills, with the ability to become productive in large TypeScript and Rust codebases.
Experience designing shared platforms, APIs, or large application architectures.
Solid product judgment, including identifying opportunities and setting priorities amid ambiguity.
A track record of mentoring experienced engineers and improving team effectiveness.
Clear communication skills, including explaining complex technical decisions and navigating tradeoffs.

Desired Qualifications

Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including 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 C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.
Experience with TypeScript, JavaScript and Rust.
Experience evolving interactive products with attention to usability and accessibility.
Experience guiding cross-platform architecture, performance improvements, or major migrations in a large application.
Experience establishing experimentation and feedback practices that connect engineering decisions to user outcomes.
Practical familiarity with AI coding tools and sound judgment about their impact on development workflows.
Experience providing technical leadership on AI-powered products, open-source projects, or extensible applications.

Benefits

The typical base pay range for this role across Switzerland is CHF 183,800.00 - CHF 309,700.00 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.
Equal opportunity employer.
Consideration for employment without regard to protected characteristics.

Skills

TypeScriptRustC++C#JavaJavaScriptPython

#software#developer#engineering#typescript#rust#ai#machine learning#architecture

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