layiq

/la·yiq/adjective

worthy; deserving; fitting; suitable.

A role, opportunity, or path that merits attention, time, and pursuit.

LAYIQ - Principal Software Engineer Manager - Windows Validation and Quality Engineering at Microsoft

Validation Strategy and Transformation
Define and drive a strategy to transform existing validation solutions and programs into a cohesive, intelligent, and AI-powered validation ecosystem.
Reimagine how validation is planned, executed, analyzed, and operationalized across the engineering lifecycle, balancing near-term delivery with long-term transformation.
Establish measurable outcomes for engineering confidence, release readiness, risk reduction, coverage effectiveness, quality, speed, and cost efficiency.
Engineering Leadership and People Management
Lead, coach, and develop a healthy, inclusive, high-performing engineering team by creating clarity, setting priorities, and growing technical and leadership capability.
Build an operating model that combines engineering ownership, domain expertise, platform thinking, and accountable execution across globally distributed teams and partners.
AI-Powered Validation and Engineering Intelligence
Drive development and adoption of AI-powered validation agents, automated investigation capabilities, risk assessment, coverage intelligence, and engineering decision-support systems.
Apply AI where it improves validation quality, accelerates learning, reduces repetitive manual analysis, identifies coverage gaps, and produces actionable engineering insights.
Establish evaluation, auditability, responsible AI, human oversight, and quality practices for AI-assisted validation decisions.
Validation Portfolio and Program Leadership
Own the strategy, prioritization, investment roadmap, and operational effectiveness of the validation portfolio across multiple programs, platforms, and engineering scenarios.
Evaluate existing validation programs and identify opportunities to modernize, consolidate, integrate, scale, or retire solutions based on engineering value and risk.
Unify validation results, coverage metrics, servicing indicators, security signals, compliance activities, and release-readiness evidence into clearer views of engineering confidence.
Vendor, Contractor, and Execution Management
Provide leadership and governance for vendor and contractor-delivered validation programs, including scope, priorities, quality expectations, delivery commitments, operational performance, and outcome measurement.
Partner with finance, procurement, operations, and engineering stakeholders to align external investments with organizational priorities, improve accountability, manage execution risk, and maximize the value of validation spend.
Cross-Organizational Influence
Partner across Windows TSX, Windows Engineering, security, MSRC, servicing, release management, engineering systems, product management, and partner organizations to align validation strategy, dependencies, interfaces, and readiness expectations.
Influence senior technical and business stakeholders, resolve competing priorities, and create shared solutions that reduce duplication and improve reuse across validation efforts.
Engineering and Operational Excellence
Establish architecture, software quality, reliability, observability, security, privacy, live-site, and operational readiness practices for validation platforms and services.
Use telemetry, experimentation, incident learning, and outcome metrics to continuously improve platform health, program execution, and customer impact.

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field AND 10+ years of experience in software development, validation engineering, quality engineering, platform engineering, engineering systems, distributed services, or related technical disciplines OR equivalent experience.
4+ years of people-management experience leading software engineers or multidisciplinary engineering teams responsible for production services, platforms, validation systems, engineering infrastructure, or operationally critical programs.
Experience defining technical strategy and leading complex engineering transformations involving architecture, organizational change, dependency management, and delivery across multiple teams and stakeholder groups.
Experience designing, building, and operating large-scale software systems, validation platforms, automation frameworks, data pipelines, telemetry systems, or engineering decision-support capabilities.
Experience leading a portfolio of engineering programs and establishing priorities, execution mechanisms, quality expectations, operational metrics, and accountability for measurable outcomes.
Experience managing work delivered through vendors, contractors, or external engineering partners, including scope, delivery, quality, performance, risk, and stakeholder alignment.
Master's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related technical discipline.
Experience leading software validation, quality engineering, release engineering, security servicing, vulnerability response, certification, compliance-sensitive engineering, or other operationally critical engineering domains.
Experience transforming fragmented programs or point solutions into shared platforms, reusable services, unified operating models, or portfolio-level capabilities.
Experience developing or adopting AI-powered engineering workflows, agentic systems, intelligent automation, engineering copilots, automated investigation, or risk-assessment solutions.
Experience designing coverage measurement, quality analytics, test-to-code mapping, risk intelligence, release-confidence, or engineering-readiness systems.
Experience applying responsible AI principles, evaluation frameworks, auditability, governance controls, quality measurements, and human-in-the-loop practices to AI-enabled systems.
Experience managing financial plans, external resources, supplier relationships, or contract execution for a portfolio of engineering programs.
Demonstrated ability to influence senior leaders and drive technical and organizational alignment across broad engineering ecosystems.
#W+DJOBS
#WSDTSX
#AI
#Validation
#QualityEngineering
#Security
#WindowsServicing

Principal Software Engineer Manager - Windows Validation and Quality Engineering

Employer job description

Responsibilities

Qualifications

Preferred Qualifications:

Equal opportunity and accommodations

About this listing

Listing check

Similar jobs

Similar jobs