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Principal Software Engineer - CoreAI

Microsoft

Microsoft

Software Engineering
USD 139,900-274,800 / year
Posted on Oct 21, 2025

Principal Software Engineer - CoreAI

Santa Clara, California, United States

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Date posted
Oct 20, 2025
Job number
1898126
Work site
3 days / week in-office
Travel
0-25 %
Role type
Individual Contributor
Profession
Software Engineering
Discipline
Software Engineering
Employment type
Full-Time

Overview

Software quality is being redefined by AI. As part of the Microsoft Playwright team, you’ll build the foundation for how developers validate and trust the next generation of AI-assisted code. You’ll work on open-source, cross-platform automation technology that powers reliable testing at scale across browsers, devices, and frameworks. You’ll collaborate closely with the GitHub and VS Code teams to deliver fast, deterministic, and secure testing solutions that integrate deeply into the modern developer workflow and serve millions worldwide.

As a Principal Software Engineer - CoreAI on the Playwright engineering team, you will design and implement systems that bring AI-native and agentic capabilities to test automation. You’ll advance Playwright’s runtime, infrastructure, and tooling to enable autonomous agents to reason about, generate, and validate software behavior. This opportunity will allow you to deepen your expertise in AI-assisted development, push the boundaries of intelligent automation with GitHub and VS Code, and expand your impact as a hands-on engineer defining the next era of software quality.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and stronevery 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.

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications:

  • 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.
  • 1+ year of experience with AI LLM models, such as OpenAI, Azure AI, ML

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/Additional 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
  • 3+ year of experience with AI LLM models, such as OpenAI, Azure AI, ML

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $139,900 - $274,800 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

Microsoft posts positions for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

#CoreAI

Responsibilities

  • Leads identification of dependencies and the development of design documents for a product, application, service, or platform.
  • Leads by example and mentors others to produce extensible and maintainable code used across products.
  • Leverages subject-matter expertise of cross-product features with appropriate stakeholders (e.g., project managers) to drive multiple group's project plans, release plans, and work items.
  • Holds accountability as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI), mentoring engineers across products/solutions, working on-call to monitor system/product/service for degradation, downtime, or interruptions.
  • Proactively seeks new knowledge and adapts to new trends, technical solutions, and patterns that will improve the availability, reliability, efficiency, observability, and performance of products while also driving consistency in monitoring and operations at scale and shares knowledge with other engineers.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.
Industry leading healthcare
Educational resources
Discounts on products and services
Savings and investments
Maternity and paternity leave
Generous time away
Giving programs
Opportunities to network and connect

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.