Principal AI Engineer
Job Description
Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every 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. Commerce + Ecosystems (C+E) is responsible for enabling and optimizing the end-to-end customer journey on the Microsoft Cloud. Overview of the role: We are looking for a Principal AI Engineer to join the Commerce Financial Platform organization. The team builds intelligent, scalable services & experiences that power Microsoft’s commerce needs end-to-end. We’re accelerating a new era of AI driven business applications—grounded in data, built for collaboration, and designed to simplify complex workflows across CRM/ERP scenarios. If you’re excited to shape how people interact with AI at enterprise scale, continuously improve processes and deliver products this might be the job for you!
Locations
- Redmond, Washington, United States, Redmond, Washington, United States
Salary
Salary not disclosed
Required 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 PythonOR equivalent experience. (degree)
- OR equivalent experience. (degree)
- 4+ years experience with large language models (LLMs) and generative AI (degree)
- Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or PythonOR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or PythonOR equivalent experience. (degree)
- OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python (degree)
- OR equivalent experience. (degree)
- Experience with agentic systems, model/tool orchestration, and/or retrieval augmented generation (RAG). (degree)
- Expertise with Azure AI, vector stores, prompt/response evaluation, and performance optimization for LLM workloads. (degree)
- Track record of shipping applied research to production and partnering with research teams on custom/finetuned models. (degree)
- Familiarity with Responsible AI practices and inclusive design/accessibility standards. (degree)
- Ability to influence across teams and drive ambiguous, multi-partner initiatives to outcomes. (degree)
- Handson experiences taking LLM/ML features from prototype to production (evaluation, safety, telemetry, and iterative improvement). (degree)
Preferred Qualifications
- Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or PythonOR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or PythonOR equivalent experience. (degree)
- OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python (degree)
- OR equivalent experience. (degree)
- Experience with agentic systems, model/tool orchestration, and/or retrieval augmented generation (RAG). (degree)
- Expertise with Azure AI, vector stores, prompt/response evaluation, and performance optimization for LLM workloads. (degree)
- Track record of shipping applied research to production and partnering with research teams on custom/finetuned models. (degree)
- Familiarity with Responsible AI practices and inclusive design/accessibility standards. (degree)
- Ability to influence across teams and drive ambiguous, multi-partner initiatives to outcomes. (degree)
- Handson experiences taking LLM/ML features from prototype to production (evaluation, safety, telemetry, and iterative improvement). (degree)
Responsibilities
- Design and ship AI systems end-to-end—from exploration to production—spanning LLM based services, retrieval/grounding pipelines, and robust evaluation/observability.
- Build agentic tools using workflows that reason across data and services, optimizing for safety, latency, and cost at cloud scale (Azure preferred).
- Collaborate across research and product teams to adapt/finetune models (LLMs/SLMs, multimodal) for real customer scenarios.
- Lead technical direction across features and services; mentor engineers; champion high engineering standards, reliability, and accessible, inclusive experiences.
- Uphold Responsible AI, secure and compliance practices in design, data handling, and experimentation.
- Participate in on call/operational excellence as part of a healthy, sustainable engineering culture; lead by example.
Travel Requirements
3 days / week in-office
