Principal Security Engineer

Microsoft is seeking a Principal Security Engineer within its Forward-Deployed Security team in the Security Assurance department. This role involves assessing complex systems, developing risk reduction strategies, and collaborating with product teams to implement security improvements.

Responsibilities:

• Lead deep technical security reviews of products, services, infrastructure, and emerging technologies using AI-enabled methods including architecture analysis, threat modeling, adversarial testing, source review, telemetry, and data analysis
• Turn review outcomes into prioritized security roadmaps with clear tradeoffs, practical milestones, and measurable risk-reduction goals
• Build and maintain security tools, automation, prototypes, and reusable engineering patterns that teams adopt in real workflows
• Partner directly with product and research teams to design, debug, implement, and validate security improvements, staying engaged through root-cause resolution rather than stopping at recommendations
• Integrate automated security checks, guardrails, and secure defaults into engineering systems so successful one-off work becomes scalable capability
• Use threat intelligence, hunting techniques, telemetry, and incident learning to identify emerging attack paths and convert them into detections, controls, and engineering priorities

Requirements:

• Doctorate in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or related field AND 5+ years experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, threat modeling, cyber security, anomaly detection, Security Operations Center (SOC) detection, threat analytics, security incident and event management (SIEM), information technology (IT), or operations incident response
• OR Master's Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or related field AND 6+ years experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, threat modeling, cyber security, anomaly detection, Security Operations Center (SOC) detection, threat analytics, security incident and event management (SIEM), information technology (IT), or operations incident response
• OR Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or related field AND 8+ years experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, threat modeling, cyber security, anomaly detection, Security Operations Center (SOC) detection, threat analytics, security incident and event management (SIEM), information technology (IT), or operations incident response
• OR equivalent experience
• Experience owning complex, multidisciplinary, multi-organization security problems from initial scoping through technical resolution and validated improvement
• Experience building and maintaining security tools, automation, or internal security capabilities used by real engineering teams
• Software engineering experience in one or more general-purpose languages, such as Python, C#, C++, Go, Java, Rust, or TypeScript, enabled by agentic software engineering practices
• Hands-on experience with at least multiple security assessment methods such as threat modeling, architecture review, source or configuration review, adversarial testing, attack-path analysis, detection engineering, or incident investigation
• Experience working directly with product or engineering teams to prioritize, implement, and validate security improvements
• Ability to analyze security or operational data and use evidence to make technical and prioritization decisions
• Securing complex cloud, distributed, identity, data, AI, or developer-platform systems
• Designing secure defaults, reusable engineering patterns, or automated controls that reduced the effort required for other teams to build securely
• Using threat intelligence, adversary simulation, hunting, or incident findings to improve preventive or detective controls at a systemic level
• Leading complex cross-team technical initiatives through technical credibility and influence, and mentoring other engineers or security practitioners at an industry level