Principal Software Engineer - Gaming
 Microsoft | |
 United States, Washington, Redmond | |
 Jul 02, 2025 | |
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OverviewCome help build the next evolution in Xbox Game Compatibility. Join the Xbox Platform team and leverage your system engineering experience to advance the future of Game Preservation. Your work will help identify and outline the specific requirements and technical boundaries for preserving game content, build scalable emulation solutions, and ensure a fun gameplay experience for all players. Our technology solutions are a critical part of enabling the Xbox goal of allowing players to continue to enjoy their games across devices. As a Principal Software Engineer on our team, you will have the opportunity to shape the future of game preservation. You will own a graphics shader compatibility pipeline to ensure shaders from previous generations of games run correctly and efficiently on modern Xbox hardware. You will work with DirectX APIs, graphics hardware, and game code to design and optimize a cutting-edge shader translation system for modern GPUs. Often, this will require working with limited access to debugging symbols and source code. You'll work closely with graphics architects and driver teams to implement high-performance code generation, optimize shader pipelines, and push the boundaries of real-time rendering. 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.
ResponsibilitiesOwn the graphics shader compatibility pipeline for running previous generation games on modern Xbox hardware Design and implement systems to translate shader instructions and behaviors across hardware generations - both generically and, when needed, on a per-title basis Investigate and resolve correctness and performance issues in shader execution Build and maintain tools that support shader analysis, debugging, and compatibility validation Collaborate with engineers across Xbox, Microsoft, and external partners to deliver robust solutions that uphold our compatibility promise | |