Principal Software Engineering Manager- Windows Commercial

Overview

In Windows Commerial, our job is to keep and win commercial customers by making Windows measurably better where it matters most to them.

As the Group Engineer Manager for Commercial Quality, Data & Insights (CQDI), you will lead a distributed engineering organization-spanning a newly formed team in IDC Hyderabad and engineers and program managers in Redmond-that delivers value directly on behalf of Microsofts most important commercial customers and partners.Your team owns two complementary missions:

• Last‑mile feature completion in core Windows to retain and win high‑value commercial accounts and maintain Windows as the best value-to-cost offering available to customers. When core Windows feature teams cannot prioritize a change a major commercial customer needs, your team steps in to complete that work-coding directly in other teams source trees and driving the change through to ship in partnership with those teams leaders.
• Commercial data & insights tooling that powers Microsofts commercial success teams-building the Decision Intelligence and signal‑network capabilities that sit as a leverage layer above the Windows data‑science pipeline and enable commercial touchpoint teams to act on a superior set of data insights, offered faster than ever before.

In this role, you will demonstrate that your team embraces the latest AI‑assisted engineering to deliver useful improvements to Windows and strengthen our competitive position, while building a healthy, high‑performing team culture across two geographies and time zones.

Microsofts 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

Engineering leadership & delivery

• Own end‑to‑end delivery of OS feature changes and tooling that integrate cleanly into current and future Windows product plans, meeting quality, security, and schedule commitments.
• Guide the team to deliver code changes of solid quality that pass peer review and security scrutiny and are regression‑free, including changes made within other teams codebases.
• Optimize, debug, refactor, and reuse code to improve performance, maintainability, effectiveness, and return on investment.
• Operationalize AI‑assisted engineering practices (LLM‑powered IDE workflows, code generation, automated refactoring and testing) into consistent, measurable team habits.

Cross‑team navigation & influence

• Partner with Windows area leaders across In‑Market, Core, Experiences, and Developer to align on requirements, secure code‑review and integration paths, and land commercial‑critical changes in their source trees. It is likely that different other Windows Leaders will desire different relationships on how we work in their source trees; you will be the leader navigating this for the org.
• Guide identification of cross‑team dependencies and the development of design documents, engineering release plans, and work items in coordination with security, privacy, and peer teams.
• Represent CQDI engineering in WECE operating rhythms and translate customer and competitive signals into prioritized, trackable engineering action.

People & organizational leadership

• Lead, coach, and grow a geographically distributed team, including hiring and ramping a newly formed IDC engineering team while integrating it with Redmond engineers and PMs.
• Establish disciplined, sprint‑based execution-well‑scoped increments, continuous integration and test, end‑of‑sprint demos, and retrospectives that improve quality and predictability.
• Build durable rhythms that bridge Redmond and India time zones for interviews, onboarding, code review, and day‑to‑day leadership.
• Model, coach, and care for team health, talent development, and inclusion.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelors 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.
• OR equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Masters 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

• OR Bachelors Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 15+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python

• OR equivalent experience.

• 6+ years people‑management experience leading software engineering teams, including leading senior ICs and/or managers.

• Demonstrated experience leading geographically distributed engineering teams, including a remote team in India alongside a US‑based team.

• Experience building and shipping software within large, complex codebases shared among thousands of engineers.

• Hands‑on familiarity with the Windows codebase-knowing where functionality lives and how to make and land changes across multiple Windows component source trees.

• Ability to establish relationships and credibility with multiple Windows area leaders, with a proven ability to navigate cross‑team ownership, unblock integration, and drive changes to ship through other teams.

• Experience standing up and ramping a newly formed team, investing the extra time required to get a new organization productive quickly.

• Hands‑on experience using AI‑assisted development tools in production engineering environments, and the ability to operationalize them into consistent team practices, quality gates, and evaluation harnesses.

• Experience delivering data/insights or telemetry platforms (e.g., Azure Data Explorer/Kusto, data pipelines, Power BI) that serve business and partner decision‑making.

• Experience working across teams within a shared‑ownership model with clear contracts, influencing outcomes for customers and partners.

#W+DJOBS

Software Engineering M6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $165,600 - $296,400 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 $220,800 - $331,200 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.