Microsoft

Compensation

Full Description

Overview How do you know an AI product is actually getting better, and how do you prove it, at scale, before millions of people feel the difference? We build and operate the offline evaluation platform that gates Microsoft Copilot's quality: teams across Copilot depend on us to run their scenarios against the product, score the responses, and produce the scorecards that decide what ships. We do this at the scale of one of the world's largest AI products, inside a strict enterprise compliance boundary. As Copilot becomes a fleet of autonomous agents, the way we measure quality has to be reinvented, and you will lead that reinvention. As a Principal Software Engineer on the Copilot evaluation team, you will own the technical vision for a platform built AI-first and agentic-first: one where autonomous agents are not just measured, but help operate, extend, and heal the system itself. You will take on our hardest problem, delivering trustworthy results across a deep chain of dependencies (Copilot's model, retrieval, and scoring services) that we drive far outside their normal operating envelope, hundreds of calls per job, under relentless and growing load. You will architect how we evaluate agentic Copilot experiences, from multi-turn trajectories and tool selection to end-to-end task outcomes, and set the standard for how the whole product defines and measures quality. This opportunity will allow you to shape the evaluation strategy for one of the world's most visible AI products, work at the frontier of large-scale agentic systems and reliability engineering, and grow your influence as a technical leader across a large engineering organization. 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. Responsibilities - Sets the technical direction for the Copilot offline evaluation platform and partners with teams across the Copilot organization to turn ambiguous quality questions into rigorous, reproducible evaluations: the scenarios, metrics, and scorecards that gate what ships. - Leads the architecture of an AI-first, agentic-first evaluation platform in which autonomous agents are first-class operators, designing the services, pipelines, and tooling that agents can run, extend, and reason about, with the observability and guardrails that make agent-driven operation trustworthy. - Owns the platform's hardest challenge: delivering trustworthy results across a deep chain of dependencies driven far outside their normal operating envelope, designing for graceful degradation, intelligent retry, dependency-aware gating, and reliability that holds under sustained, growing load. - Defines how Copilot's agentic experiences are evaluated end to end, from multi-turn trajectories and tool selection to task outcomes and modalities such as UX and voice, building the simulation, scraping, and scoring capabilities that make agent behavior measurable. - Leads by example and mentors engineers across teams to produce extensible, maintainable systems, driving modernization of the evaluation runtime and platform so it scales with fast-growing demand while improving cost and latency. - Stays at the frontier of agentic systems, large-scale AI evaluation, and autonomous operations, bringing in new trends and patterns and sharing that knowledge to raise the bar for how the entire Copilot organization measures quality. Qualifications Required Qualifications: - Bachelors Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to .Net, Java, JavaScript, Rust or Python - OR equivalent experience. 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 Qualifications: - Masters Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to .Net, Java, JavaScript, Rust or Python - OR Bachelors Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to .Net, Java, JavaScript, Rust or Python - OR equivalent experience. - Deep experience with large-scale distributed systems and reliability engineering, especially delivering dependable outcomes across many interacting service dependencies operating under heavy or unusual load. - Experience building AI-first or agentic systems, and designing systems, APIs, and tooling intended to be operated by autonomous agents, including the observability, guardrails, and safety mechanisms that make agent-driven operation trustworthy. - Experience with AI/ML evaluation, measurement, or benchmarking systems, such as LLM-based grading, metric design, or large-scale data and quality pipelines. 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. Skills: Application Programming Interface (API), Architectural Analysis, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Background Investigation, Benchmarking, Cloud Computing, Computer Science, Data Management, Distributed Computing, Engineering, Java, JavaScript, Large-Scale Systems, Machine Tool, Mentoring, Metrics, Microsoft .NET, Microsoft Product Family, Operational Audit, Python Programming/Scripting Language, Quality Metrics, Reliability Engineering, Scorecarding, Simulation, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Systems Reliability, Technical Leadership, Truck Driver, User Interface/Experience (UI/UX), Vehicle Fleets About the Company: Microsoft Corp DO WHAT YOU LOVE Make your mark on the world’s most used technologies. Develop the next hit mobile application. Pioneer a startup that could be the next big thing. At Microsoft, you choose your path. Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, Microsoft is a top innovator in both the consumer and enterprise technology industry. Just a few of the many things our products do are unleash creativity, connect businesses, and make learning more fun. But our continued success is based on one thing: our employees. We hire amazing, talented people and give them the opportunities—and the tools—to succeed. WHY MICROSOFT? As a Microsoft employee, you’re surrounded by a diverse group of the smartest people in your field. This fosters new ideas, better business results, and creates a dynamic work environment. In the office, you’re constantly challenged and supported by your colleagues. Every day holds something new and exciting. We also offer unparalleled depth and breadth of career opportunities. As an industry leader in multiple fields, working for Microsoft means being able to do whatever you feel passionate about—and being able to make an impact in that field. From day one, we give our employees significant responsibility. This means that you’ll know that you directly contributed to something that has a positive impact on people worldwide. Whether you choose to work in management, dive deep into the newest technology, or explore multiple professions, you’ll find everything you need at Microsoft to drive your career—and to make a difference. WE GET IT – YOU’RE MORE THAN YOUR JOB Everyone works differently and is motivated by different things. We also understand that there’s more to you than your job. That’s why we offer competitive pay and a wide assortment of benefits-- to help you make the most of life at work and away from it. GET THE BALL ROLLING Company Size: 10,000 employees or more Industry: Computer Software Founded: 1975 Website: http://www.microsoft.com