Principal Architect

Job Description Overview Microsoft Ads powers one of the world's largest digital advertising ecosystems, delivering billions of recommendations every day to users worldwide. We are seeking a Principal Architect to advance the next generation of distributed systems that power ad retrieval, ranking, moderation, and generation at web scale. You will also build evaluation frameworks, enable agentic platforms leveraging LLMs and SLMs to reason, adapt, and take multi-step actions, unlocking measurable impact for our advertisers and users. 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 - Advance large-scale distributed AI platform to improve usability, scalability, reliability, efficiency, and architectural clarity. - Take R&D ideas from concept to production, delivering measurable business impact and better user experiences at scale. - Act as the go-to expert for critical issues, unblock projects, and ensure architectural integrity and long-term sustainability. - Develop and drive metrics frameworks to measure system performance, model quality, and overall platform effectiveness, enabling continuous improvement and data-driven decision making. - Design and evolve agent-based workflows leveraging LLMs and SLMs, enabling reasoning-capable, adaptive, multi-step decision-making systems. - Mentor technical leads and senior engineers, fostering a culture of engineering excellence. - Align with partner teams on strategy, roadmaps, and timelines to ensure end-to-end delivery. - Provide technical direction and ensure timely, high-quality delivery of complex, multi-quarter initiatives. Qualifications Required Qualifications: - Bachelor'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 - OR equivalent experience. - Proven experience building and shipping large-scale distributed systems and infrastructure services. - Experience with large-scale data systems, optimizations and distributed system design. - Solid organization, prioritization, and communication skills to drive clarity and alignment across teams. - Track record of delivering high-impact systems within timelines and raising the technical bar for the organization. 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: - Master'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 OR Bachelor's 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. - Expertise in ML systems design, including training pipelines, offline/online serving, and optimization for cost, latency, and throughput. - Thought leadership in systems or ML architecture. Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form. Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work. #MicrosoftAI 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.