The Principal Software Engineer role at Microsoft Advertising Mediation Service (MMS) focuses on setting the technical direction for a real-time auction and mediation platform. This deeply technical individual contributor role involves owning architecture decisions, driving cross-team technical strategy, and mentoring senior engineers. The position requires collaboration with various teams to shape the roadmap and improve the platform's scalability and performance. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in software engineering, particularly in building latency-sensitive backend services.

• 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.
• Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements.
• 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 Python preferred.
• 6+ years of experience building and operating latency-sensitive backend services with strict SLA requirements.

• Own the long-range architecture of the MMS platform, including the OpenRTB request hot path and auction engines.
• Drive cross-team technical strategy with peer principals across Microsoft Advertising.
• Set and enforce engineering standards through design reviews and mentorship of senior engineers.
• Design and build highly scalable Go services on the MMS platform with strict latency and availability SLAs.
• Evolve the bidder adapter framework to support new supply types and integration patterns.
• Improve the auction subsystem with measurable revenue and quality impact.
• Strengthen the experimentation framework to enable safe A/B testing at high cadence.
• Drive Azure-native deployment and operational excellence across various Azure services.
• Lead initiatives to reduce cost-per-request and improve system reliability.
• Contribute to runbooks, deployment documentation, and oncall readiness.

• Employees at Microsoft are often offered comprehensive, “world-class” benefits—including health and mental-wellness programs, competitive pay with bonuses and stock awards, and retirement/savings options. Time-off and flexibility are common, with generous vacation and holidays, parental and caregiver leave, and flexible work schedules, alongside learning support, employee resource groups, product discounts, and matching-gifts/volunteering programs. Specific benefits can vary by region.