Principal Software Engineer, Web Data Platform

Overview

We are looking for a talented and experienced Principal Software Engineer, Web Data Platform to join the Bing Crawler team within the Microsoft AI (MAI) Web Data Platform organization. The Microsoft AI (MAI) group focuses on building comprehensive and engaging content, services, and platforms for consumers and enterprises. Within the Web Data Platform Team, we construct the global web-scale Index and its supporting platform.

You will be responsible for designing, developing, and improving the architecture and codebase of our large-scale web crawler platform system, which fetches, renders, processes, and stores billions of web pages daily. You will also have the opportunity to mentor a team of software engineers, drive technical innovation and decisions, and collaborate with other teams across Bing and Microsoft.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees, we foster a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we uphold our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive.

Starting January 26, 2026, Microsoft AI (MAI) employees who live within a 50-mile commute of a designated Microsoft office in the U.S. or 25-mile commute of a non-U.S., country-specific location are expected to work from the office at least four days per week. This expectation is subject to local law and may vary by jurisdiction.

Responsibilities

• Design the architecture of the Crawler system, ensuring scalability, efficiency, performance, and quality.
• Implement features in a distributed and scalable environment using data to guide and measure success.
• Develop and execute unit, integration, and performance tests to ensure the system is reliable, robust, and meets quality standards.
• Debug and mitigate incidents in live production environments.
• Stay up to date with the latest industry trends and technologies and proactively suggest improvements to the existing system.
• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, including product managers and other engineers, to align development goals with business objectives.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or a related technical field AND 6+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.
• 7+ years of professional software development experience.
• Proficiency in at least one high-level programming language including but not limited to: C++, C#, Java, Golang, or Rust.
• Good communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills.
• Fluent English speaking and writing.

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:

• Experience with large-scale distributed systems.
• Familiarity with online service high-performance tuning.
• Familiarity with large-scale data processing and storage.
• Nice to have crawling system experience.
• Nice to have search engine platform development experience.
• Nice to have machine learning project experience.

Key skills/competency

• Distributed Systems
• Web Crawling
• System Architecture
• Scalability
• Performance Tuning
• Data Processing
• C++/C#/Java
• Debugging
• Technical Leadership
• Platform Engineering