Principal Data Engineer

Microsoft’s Path team helps customers along their journey from the initial idea to the final realization of their goals from Idea-to-Plan-to-Done.
 
We are responsible for collaborative Work Management products including Microsoft Project, Planner, To Do, and Visio. With Project and Planner, we help customers collaborate effectively to navigate complexity, determine critical paths, and orchestrate their plans to achieve more. With To Do and Tasks, we help customers capture, prioritize, and complete their aspirations and goals along their path to success. With Visio, we help customers model and conceptualize information pathways through process diagrams, organizational charts, and more to visualize what it is and what it can be. Collectively, we're responsible for an incredible portfolio of products and services that help guide people and organizations along their journey to achieve more. Microsoft, being a leader in AI space, we are heavily investing in building new AI tools, agents, skills, and MCP servers.
 

The Principal Data Engineer will operate as a senior technical leader shaping the data & analytics foundations that power Microsoft Path org’s products and platforms at a global scale. The engineer will collaborate with Product, Engineering, and Data Science stakeholders from multiple teams to analyze data requirements, understand the data flow across existing and new products, differentiate human vs. AI Agent generated data, lead the design of data models, and prepare design specifications for building data pipelines. The Data engineer will be responsible for identifying data sources, building code to extract raw data, and transforming it into formats compatible with downstream consumers. The Data Engineer will develop tools, do performance monitoring, and perform root cause analysis of issues to ensure robust and reliable data pipelines.  You will define architectural direction, influence multi-team roadmaps, and set data engineering standards that enable reliable, secure, and scalable analytics for AI-driven products.

Additionally, the Data Engineer will deeply understand data governance & compliance needs, and partner with Corporate, External, and Legal Affairs (CELA) to ensure compliance with laws and policies throughout the development process across WW, EU, and GOV clouds. The role involves designing data modeling, data handling procedures, data cleansing or abstractions, implementing solutions to minimize points of failure, and ensuring that all aspects of data management adhere to organizational standards and regulatory requirements.

*** This specific role has the potential to convert into a Data Engg Manager role in future as the team grows. ***

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. By integrating the power of generative AI with tools for workflow management you will directly contribute to that mission empowering customers to achieve at a pace and scale beyond what has previously been considered possible.

• Design, implement, monitor, and optimize large-scale, robust data pipelines and architectures that support Microsoft Path products data analytics initiatives.
• Develop scalable ETL/ELT workflows, ensure reliable ingestion, transformation, and storage of high-volume, high-velocity data from diverse sources with different schemas.
• Data Governance & Trust: Enforce best practices for data quality, lineage, security, and compliance.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to define trustworthy data sets and implement rigorous data validation protocols, ensuring analytics are accurate and auditable.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Work closely with product managers, software engineers, AI researchers, and business stakeholders to build data solutions that accomplish business goals.
• Enable self-service analytics and empower teams by building data models, semantic layers, and tools that streamline access to trusted information.
• Translate ambitious vision into actionable roadmaps and measurable outcomes.
• Mentor senior data engineers and technical leads, guide complex design decisions, and foster a culture of engineering excellence, operational rigor, and continuous learning across the organization. 

• 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++, C#, Java, JavaScript, 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: