Principal Software Engineer, AI Ads at Microsoft
Mountain View, CA
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Jul 28, 2026
Mountain View, CA
Jul 29, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
This role leads the architecture, development, and optimization of globally distributed, low-latency systems for shopping ads, travel, and product knowledge graphs. The work spans big data infrastructure, AI-native development practices (coding agents, agentic workflows), and cross-team technical strategy bridging engineering, data science, and product. It suits a deeply experienced engineer comfortable operating at scale and driving technical direction across multiple teams.
Staff level · 6+ years · Bachelor's required
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $138,970 (middle half $107,524–$175,762).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 29, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (8)
The posting lists multiple degree/experience tiers (Bachelor's + 6 yrs, Master's + 8 yrs, Bachelor's + 12 yrs, or equivalent). The minimum hard gate is a Bachelor's degree with 6+ years; the overall years minimum is set to 6 accordingly.
The posting mentions 'specialized security screenings' but does not gate on any specific US security clearance level — no clearance is required.
The programming languages (C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Python) are listed as a group with 'including, but not limited to' — the requirement is proficiency in at least one; they are emitted as a mutual-alternative set.
The role title is not given in the posting; the scope (cross-team technical strategy, mentoring, reshaping AI-driven workflows across globally distributed teams) supports a Staff-level classification despite the title being unspecified.
Location is not stated in the posting; CBSA and state fields are left blank. The role appears to be at a large tech company (signals point to Microsoft based on Azure/ADLA/ADLS/Kusto stack), but no location is confirmed from the text.
The alt SOC (15-1243 Database Architects) reflects the significant product/knowledge graph design and data modeling emphasis, though the primary work is clearly software development at scale.
Technologies listed under the 'Hands-on experience with one or more of the following' block are marked preferred, as the posting explicitly frames them as optional alternatives.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): Azure Data Lake Analytics, AI model inference platforms.
Read the full posting
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