Principal Software Engineer

Overview

Microsoft is a company where passionate innovators come to collaborate, envision what can be and take their careers further. This is a world of more possibilities, more innovation, more openness, and the sky is the limit thinking in a cloud-enabled world.

Microsoft’s Azure Data engineering team is leading the transformation of analytics in the world of data with products like databases, data integration, big data analytics, messaging & real-time analytics, and business intelligence. The products our portfolio include Microsoft Fabric, Azure SQL DB, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure PostgreSQL, Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Service Bus, Azure Event Grid, and Power BI. Our mission is to build the data platform for the age of AI, powering a new class of data-first applications and driving a data culture.

Within Azure Data, the databases team builds and maintains Microsoft’s operational Database systems. We store and manage data in a structured way to enable multitude of applications across various industries. We are on a journey to enable developer friendly, mission-critical, AI enabled operational Databases across relational, non-relational and OSS offerings.

Agentic workloads dramatically amplify data velocity, variety, and volume, spanning a wide spectrum from simple lookups to search queries all the way to complex analytical queries across diverse data sizes to deliver high throughput insights and actions through a single pane of glass. Modern agent driven development platforms introduce new set of database requirements such zero copy forks, conflict aware merges, and autonomous DBA agents. Our team at Microsoft is on a mission to build next gen AI database in Microsoft Fabric, a fast growing unified, scalable and fully governed data platform for the enterprises.

We are seeking a Principal Sofware Engineer with deep PostgreSQL expertise to design, build Postgres based database for the modern, AI native, agent driven workloads. You will extend PostgreSQL using open engines and open data formats, innovating deeply in the query planning, query execution and storage layers of the database to support scalable, interoperable, and high performance data access for next generation applications.

We do not just value differences or different perspectives. We seek them out and invite them in so we can tap into the collective power of everyone in the company. As a result, our customers are better served.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop storage and index access methods leveraging lake native open storage formats
• Innovate on techniques to come up with optimal query plan based on various cost based techniques that composes hybrid storge formats
• Design and develop novel methods to compose different engines into hybrid query execution plan
• Provide thought leadership in one or more related problem space
• Provide mentorship to junior engineers in the team
• Own the E2E lifecycle of the product

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical discipline.
• 12+ years of hands‑on software development experience using C, C++, Rust, or an equivalent systems programming language.
• 5+ years designing, developing, and shipping system‑level features for large‑scale cloud services or backend distributed systems.
• Deep expertise in distributed systems, storage, and database architectures, with the ability to set technical direction and influence design across multiple teams.
• Proven experience building and operating cloud platforms or foundational services on Azure, AWS, or GCP, including ownership of scalability strategy, availability guarantees, and platform‑level observability.
• Experience working with PostgreSQL internals or similar enterprise‑grade database systems, sufficient to guide architecture and resolve complex production issues.

Job Requirements: Other & Additional

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

Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are no…