Principal Software Engineer - AI Systems Observability

Overview

Help shape how intelligent agents understand and operate the systems that power the cloud. On the Azure Core Upstream Observability team, you will build and contribute to open-source technologies that make Kubernetes and Linux environments easier to understand, diagnose, and operate. You will work with engineers, product managers, partner teams, and upstream communities to advance reliable, secure, and efficient observability capabilities.

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will set technical direction and lead the design and delivery of agentic observability capabilities across Kubernetes and Linux. You will turn evolving customer, partner, and operational needs into coherent architectures and production-quality solutions while remaining hands-on in implementation, review, and operational excellence.

This opportunity will allow you to deepen your proficiency in safe, observable, and evaluable agentic systems. Expand your technical leadership across Kubernetes, Linux, and cloud-scale distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Partner with appropriate stakeholders to determine user requirements for agentic observability scenarios across Kubernetes and Linux environments.
• Lead identification of dependencies and development of design documents for products, applications, services, or platforms that support safe, observable, and evaluable agentic workflows.
• Lead by example and mentor others to produce extensible and maintainable code used across products, including hands-on implementation, review, testing, debugging, and maintenance.
• Use proficiency in cross-product features to work cooperatively with appropriate stakeholders, including product managers, and drive project plans, release plans, and work items across multiple groups.
• Apply Kubernetes and Linux proficiency to collect, correlate, and interpret systems signals, using Linux kernel and extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) techniques when they are the appropriate engineering choice.
• Be responsible as a Designated Responsible Individual (DRI), support engineers across products and solutions, and participate in on-call work to monitor systems, products, and services for degradation, downtime, or interruptions.
• Proactively seek new knowledge and adapt to trends, technical solutions, and patterns that improve availability, reliability, efficiency, observability, and performance while supporting consistent monitoring and operations at scale and sharing knowledge with other engineers.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

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++, Go, Python, or Rust OR equivalent experience.

Other Requirements

Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role.