Principal Devops Engineer Jobs at Microsoft with Visa Sponsorship
Principal Devops Engineer jobs at Microsoft sit at the intersection of large-scale cloud infrastructure and engineering leadership, covering Azure platform work, CI/CD systems, and site reliability across globally distributed teams. Microsoft has a consistent track record of sponsoring work visas for senior engineering talent in this function.
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Microsoft Research (MSR) is working to transform the future of artificial intelligence (AI) by bridging the gap between cutting-edge general AI and the specialized, real-world applications that drive meaningful impact. To pursue this mission, we're building world-class AI infrastructure that not only powers our models on large Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) clusters, but also accelerates our research lifecycle through agentic development.
Our team has a global scope, powering the work of every Microsoft Research lab around the world. We're looking for a Senior Principal Engineering Manager to lead and grow our team that builds one of the world's largest research GPU clusters.
This is a transformational leadership opportunity. You will grow a talented team of engineers and evolve it into a cohesive, high-performing organization that designs, builds, and operates world-class research compute infrastructure at scale. You will set the vision for how the team works, grows, and delivers, while driving the execution rigor needed to ship complex infrastructure reliably in a highly dynamic environment.
If you're passionate about leading teams at the frontier of AI infrastructure and want to shape the future of how research compute is built and operated, we invite you to explore this opportunity.
At Microsoft, our mission—to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more—guides how we partner with customers to deliver trusted, impactful solutions. With a growth mindset culture, we innovate responsibly and measure success by shared progress—people, teams, and customers. Join us to do meaningful work that changes the world and helps shape what’s next for everyone.
Responsibilities
- Lead, mentor, and grow the engineering team that builds MSR’s AI research infrastructure.
- Recruit and develop exceptional engineering talent, building a diverse team - including hiring, onboarding, career development, and performance management.
- Drive execution across the team by setting clear goals, tracking milestones, managing dependencies, and ensuring accountability for delivering complex infrastructure projects on time and at high quality.
- Lead team culture and process changes, cultivating an AI-first mentality that accelerates our progress through agentic coding, automation, and skills development.
- Provide technical vision and judgment on the team's architecture, strategy, and roadmap — spanning supercomputer GPU clusters, high performance networking, workload optimization, researcher tools, and agentic workflows — while empowering engineers to own deep technical details.
- Collaborate closely cross-discipline with engineers, program managers, and research and science teams to align priorities, resolve dependencies, and build better solutions together.
- Foster a team culture of operational excellence, continuous improvement, and high psychological safety where engineers are empowered to take ownership and innovate.
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.
Preferred Qualifications
- 5+ years of people management experience leading software engineering teams, including managing principal engineers.
- Experience building or operating infrastructure for large-scale distributed systems, cloud platforms, or artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) workloads.
- Track record of driving execution on complex, multi-workstream infrastructure projects with clear milestones and accountability.
- Technical fluency in one or more of: large-scale compute clusters, GPU infrastructure, scheduling and orchestration (Kubernetes, Volcano), or High-Performance Compute (HPC) environments.
- Experience with GPU programming (CUDA, NCCL) and frameworks such as PyTorch.
- Expertise in networking (InfiniBand, NVLink), storage systems, or distributed training parallelisms.
- A track record of strong cross-functional partnerships, including the ability to align on strategic direction, deliver joint accountabilities, and develop relationships with staff members with widely varied expertise.
- Experience scaling engineering teams through significant growth phases (hiring, onboarding, and integrating new engineers into a high-performing team).
- 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.
Compensation
- The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $163,000 - $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.
Overview
Microsoft Research (MSR) is working to transform the future of artificial intelligence (AI) by bridging the gap between cutting-edge general AI and the specialized, real-world applications that drive meaningful impact. To pursue this mission, we're building world-class AI infrastructure that not only powers our models on large Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) clusters, but also accelerates our research lifecycle through agentic development.
Our team has a global scope, powering the work of every Microsoft Research lab around the world. We're looking for a Senior Principal Engineering Manager to lead and grow our team that builds one of the world's largest research GPU clusters.
This is a transformational leadership opportunity. You will grow a talented team of engineers and evolve it into a cohesive, high-performing organization that designs, builds, and operates world-class research compute infrastructure at scale. You will set the vision for how the team works, grows, and delivers, while driving the execution rigor needed to ship complex infrastructure reliably in a highly dynamic environment.
If you're passionate about leading teams at the frontier of AI infrastructure and want to shape the future of how research compute is built and operated, we invite you to explore this opportunity.
At Microsoft, our mission—to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more—guides how we partner with customers to deliver trusted, impactful solutions. With a growth mindset culture, we innovate responsibly and measure success by shared progress—people, teams, and customers. Join us to do meaningful work that changes the world and helps shape what’s next for everyone.
Responsibilities
- Lead, mentor, and grow the engineering team that builds MSR’s AI research infrastructure.
- Recruit and develop exceptional engineering talent, building a diverse team - including hiring, onboarding, career development, and performance management.
- Drive execution across the team by setting clear goals, tracking milestones, managing dependencies, and ensuring accountability for delivering complex infrastructure projects on time and at high quality.
- Lead team culture and process changes, cultivating an AI-first mentality that accelerates our progress through agentic coding, automation, and skills development.
- Provide technical vision and judgment on the team's architecture, strategy, and roadmap — spanning supercomputer GPU clusters, high performance networking, workload optimization, researcher tools, and agentic workflows — while empowering engineers to own deep technical details.
- Collaborate closely cross-discipline with engineers, program managers, and research and science teams to align priorities, resolve dependencies, and build better solutions together.
- Foster a team culture of operational excellence, continuous improvement, and high psychological safety where engineers are empowered to take ownership and innovate.
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.
Preferred Qualifications
- 5+ years of people management experience leading software engineering teams, including managing principal engineers.
- Experience building or operating infrastructure for large-scale distributed systems, cloud platforms, or artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) workloads.
- Track record of driving execution on complex, multi-workstream infrastructure projects with clear milestones and accountability.
- Technical fluency in one or more of: large-scale compute clusters, GPU infrastructure, scheduling and orchestration (Kubernetes, Volcano), or High-Performance Compute (HPC) environments.
- Experience with GPU programming (CUDA, NCCL) and frameworks such as PyTorch.
- Expertise in networking (InfiniBand, NVLink), storage systems, or distributed training parallelisms.
- A track record of strong cross-functional partnerships, including the ability to align on strategic direction, deliver joint accountabilities, and develop relationships with staff members with widely varied expertise.
- Experience scaling engineering teams through significant growth phases (hiring, onboarding, and integrating new engineers into a high-performing team).
- 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.
Compensation
- The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $163,000 - $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.
See all 31+ Principal Devops Engineer Jobs at Microsoft
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new Principal Devops Engineer Jobs at Microsoft.
Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding Principal Devops Engineer Jobs at Microsoft
Align your resume to Azure-specific tooling
Microsoft's Principal DevOps postings consistently emphasize Azure DevOps, Kubernetes on AKS, and Terraform at scale. Frame your experience around those tools explicitly so your resume clears automated screening before a recruiter ever sees it.
Target teams with active Azure infrastructure ownership
Microsoft's Cloud and AI, Azure Engineering, and Developer Division orgs hire Principal DevOps Engineers most frequently. Applying to roles within these orgs increases your chances of landing on a team already experienced with sponsoring senior engineers.
Understand the H-1B cap and Microsoft's filing window
H-1B registrations open each March for an October 1 start. If you're outside the U.S. without existing H-1B status, time your Microsoft application process so an offer can realistically align with the next USCIS registration period.
Prepare a portfolio of measurable platform impact
Microsoft's principal-level bar requires demonstrated scope across multiple teams or products. Document reliability improvements, deployment frequency gains, or incident reduction with concrete outcomes, since this level of evidence directly supports the specialty occupation showing in your H-1B petition.
Use Migrate Mate to filter Principal DevOps roles by visa type
Not all open Microsoft roles have active sponsorship attached to them at posting. Use Migrate Mate to filter Principal DevOps Engineer positions at Microsoft by the visa categories you need, so you're only applying where sponsorship is confirmed.
Clarify sponsorship scope before signing your offer
Microsoft sponsors multiple visa types including H-1B, E-3, and Green Card pathways. Before accepting an offer, confirm with your recruiter which visa category they intend to file and whether PERM-based permanent residence sponsorship is included in the role's package.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Microsoft sponsor H-1B visas for Principal Devops Engineers?
Yes, Microsoft sponsors H-1B visas for Principal DevOps Engineers. Microsoft is one of the most active H-1B sponsors in the technology sector, and senior engineering roles in infrastructure and platform development fall clearly within the specialty occupation definition USCIS requires. If you're targeting a principal-level role, sponsorship for this function is a standard part of Microsoft's hiring process for international candidates.
Which visa types does Microsoft commonly use for Principal Devops Engineer roles?
Microsoft sponsors H-1B visas for the broadest pool of nationalities, along with E-3 visas specifically for Australian citizens and H-1B1 visas for citizens of Singapore and Chile. For longer-term permanent residence, Microsoft also supports EB-2 and EB-3 Green Card sponsorship. The right pathway depends on your nationality, current status, and how quickly you need to begin employment.
What qualifications and experience does Microsoft expect for a Principal Devops Engineer?
Microsoft's principal-level bar typically requires a bachelor's degree or higher in computer science, software engineering, or a related field, combined with extensive hands-on experience in cloud infrastructure, CI/CD pipeline architecture, and site reliability engineering. Candidates are expected to demonstrate scope beyond a single team, showing influence across products or organizations. Experience with Azure, Kubernetes, and infrastructure-as-code is consistently listed across active postings.
How do I apply for Principal Devops Engineer jobs at Microsoft?
You can browse and apply for Principal DevOps Engineer roles at Microsoft through Migrate Mate, which filters open positions by visa sponsorship type so you can confirm sponsorship eligibility before applying. Microsoft's interview process for principal-level engineering roles typically involves a recruiter screen, technical assessments covering systems design and platform architecture, and final-round interviews assessing both technical depth and cross-team leadership impact.
How do I time my application around the H-1B process when targeting Microsoft?
USCIS opens H-1B registration each March, with approved petitions taking effect October 1. If you need a new H-1B, you'll want an offer in place before the March registration window so Microsoft can include you. Candidates already holding H-1B status with another employer can transfer to Microsoft outside that window without waiting for the next lottery cycle.