Principal Forward Deployed Engineer

Change the platform

Raise everyone around you

Deliver measurable adoption outcomes

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.
• 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

• A sustained record of owning the technical relationship with strategic partners or major enterprise engineering organizations, accountable for the outcome rather than for advice — as a forward deployed engineer, partner engineer, principal solutions architect, principal consultant, or technical founder.
• Experience standing up a new team, practice or engagement model from nothing.
• Deep technical credibility across the modern developer and AI stack: LLM application and agent architectures, evaluation, local and hybrid inference, developer environments and toolchains, WSL and containers, performance and reliability analysis of systems you did not write, and the enterprise security and identity controls that constrain all of it.
• Solid programming ability in Python and at least one of TypeScript, C#, Rust, Go, C or C++, with a record of shipping production software recently enough to still be dangerous.
• Demonstrated influence on a platform roadmap driven by customer evidence — you have changed what a product team built and can point to it.
• Experience converting bespoke customer work into durable, reusable assets — reference architectures, tooling, guidance — that scaled well beyond the original engagement.
• Ability to operate with authority in front of executive technical audiences while keeping the respect of the engineers in the room.
• Practices good judgement in ambiguous and commercially sensitive situations, including knowing what to concede, what to escalate, and what to fix quietly.
• Experience mentoring senior engineers and raising the technical bar of a team.
• Deep Windows platform expertise or demonstrated ability to reach that depth quickly from adjacent platform expertise.
• Familiarity with the Windows app platform — WinUI, WPF, .NET desktop — and with application modernization. Not required for this role, but valuable when a customer's adoption conversation turns to their existing app estate.
• #W+DJOBS
• Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $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
• This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.
• 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 with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.