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Principal Security Engineer

Multiple Locations, United States (On-site)

Principal Security Engineer

1 Hour ago • 6-10 Years • Cyber Security

About the job

11 skills required for this role

Add these skills to join the top 1% applicants for this job

java

javascript

cpp

threat-intelligence

azure

aws

data-structures

python

foundation

innovation

Job Description

The Principal Security Engineer at Microsoft's Autonomous Defense and Protection Team (ADAPT) will lead the design, deployment, and management of infrastructure for cutting-edge security research and autonomous simulation environments. Responsibilities include building scalable and secure research environments using infrastructure as code (IaC), enabling testing and simulation of adversarial techniques, and collaborating with security researchers and applied scientists. The role requires expertise in deploying attacker infrastructure for red team operations, designing adversary simulation ranges, and hands-on experience with Azure, AWS, and GCP. The successful candidate will continuously improve simulation frameworks, share knowledge, and contribute to the broader security community.

Must have:

6+ years experience in technical engineering
Experience deploying attacker infrastructure for red teaming
Hands-on experience with Azure, AWS, GCP
Proficiency in coding languages (C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Python)
Design, deploy, and manage secure infrastructure using IaC

Good to have:

Master's degree in Computer Science
Project management skills
Verbal and written communication skills

Perks:

Industry leading healthcare
Educational resources
Discounts on products and services
Savings and investments
Maternity and paternity leave
Generous time away
Giving programs
Networking opportunities

Overview

We are seeking a Principal Security Engineer to join our Autonomous Defense and Protection Team (ADAPT). Security represents the most critical priorities for our customers in a world awash in digital threats, regulatory scrutiny, and estate complexity. Microsoft Security aspires to make the world a safer place for all. We want to reshape security and empower every user, customer, and developer with a security cloud that protects them with end to end, simplified solutions. The Microsoft Security organization accelerates Microsoft’s mission and bold ambitions to ensure that our company and industry is securing digital technology platforms, devices, and clouds in our customers’ heterogeneous environments, as well as ensuring the security of our own internal estate. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world.

The Microsoft Security AI (Artificial Intelligence) Research team is responsible for defending Microsoft and our customers through applied AI innovation. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world.  Defending Microsoft’s complex environment provides a unique opportunity to build and evaluate autonomous defense through emerging generative AI capabilities. Microsoft understands and learns from its own defensive expertise, including via teams like Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC), and has the opportunity to build a unique knowledge graph describing the relationship between risk, investigation, and response. This data, built over Microsoft’s complex digital estate, along with Microsoft AI forms the foundation for innovative solutions to defend Microsoft.

In this role, you will lead the design, deployment, and management of infrastructure to support cutting-edge security research and autonomous simulation environments. Your focus will include building scalable, secure, and reproducible research environments through infrastructure as code, enabling the testing and simulation of adversarial techniques to generate incident data and produce ground truth for defensive and offensive operations. You will collaborate closely with security researchers, applied scientists, and red team operators to enable advanced experimentation, streamline operational workflows, and enhance the efficiency of our simulation and testing frameworks.

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.

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or related technical discipline 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.

6+ years experience with hands-on deploying attacker infrastructure for red team operations and designing adversary simulation ranges to support research, testing, and development of adversary techniques.
Hands-on experience with Azure, AWS, and GCP environments.

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: Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Additional or Preferred Qualifications

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 10+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python

OR Master'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.

Verbal and written communication skills with the ability to convey complex security concepts effectively.
Previous project management skills with a proven track record of driving projects to completion.

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $137,600 - $267,000 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 $180,400 - $294,000 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until January 12, 2025.

#MSFTSecurity #MSECAIR #Cybersecurity #InfoSecCommunity #SecurityResearch #IAC #DevOps #RedTeam #BlueTeam

Responsibilities

Design, deploy, and manage secure, scalable infrastructure using infrastructure as code (IaC) to build reproducible research environments, ensuring robust systems for experimentation, development, and simulation.
Create systems for testing and simulating adversary workflows, generating telemetry to empower operators in producing ground truth and evaluation datasets for defensive and offensive operations.
Collaborate with security researchers and applied scientists to align infrastructure with the replication of attacker campaigns and operational workflows.
Continuously improve simulation frameworks and methodologies to support evolving research needs, enabling realistic attack simulations and advancing offensive and defensive data analysis.
Share knowledge through collaborations, presentations, publications, and open-source contributions, fostering innovation and integration of cutting-edge research within the broader security community.

Other