Principal Security Engineer
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 30, 2026. First seen by Alion on Sep 11, 2026. Microsoft scores B on the Alion truth index.
The Microsoft Offensive Research & Security Engineering (MORSE) team is looking for a Principal Security Engineer to help secure Microsoft’s products and devices.
MORSE is responsible for securing Microsoft’s operating systems and platform technologies, cloud platforms, and virtualisation technologies that support the daily needs of over a billion customers worldwide.
In this role, you will work across the discovery and mitigation of security vulnerabilities - identifying weaknesses in systems, understanding their impact, and helping drive protections that improve the security of Microsoft platforms at scale. You will partner with engineers across Windows, Azure, and platform infrastructure to architect security solutions and influence the way systems are designed and built.
This role is well suited to engineers who enjoy deep systems work, solving complex problems, and delivering high impact security outcomes.
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
Responsibilities
- Drive identification and analysis of security vulnerabilities across operating system and platform components, including design review, code review, fuzzing, and variant analysis
- Develop and influence mitigations and protections that reduce risk across platforms, improving resilience against entire classes of vulnerabilities
- Advocate for security with engineering teams to integrate security into the development lifecycle, influence design decisions and improve secure engineering practices. Autonomously drive coordination and collaboration across broad groups across Microsoft. Devise and advocate for broadly applicable solutions.
- Contribute to the development and scaling of security tooling, detection capabilities, or analysis techniques that enable broader coverage and earlier detection of vulnerabilities
- Partner across organizations to translate security findings into systemic improvements and measurable security outcomes
- Stay current on attacker techniques, emerging vulnerability classes, and industry trends, applying this knowledge to improve Microsoft’s security posture
- Provide technical leadership within and across teams, contributing to direction setting, problem decomposition, and delivery of complex security initiatives. Mentor and coach peers on new approaches and best practices. Coordinate across teams and leads resolution of vulnerabilities, threat attacks, and security issues.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications:
- Master's Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or related field AND 4+ years experience in security or related field ORBachelor's Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or related field AND 6+ years experience in security or related field
- OR equivalent experience.
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.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Public or internal track record of relevant security research
- Understanding of operating system security fundamentals, including kernel or low level platform components
- Experience performing vulnerability research, including code review, fuzzing, reverse engineering, or exploit development
- Experience developing or applying mitigations, such as memory safety protections, sandboxing, or platform hardening techniques
- 4+ years experience in security-related elements of software engineering or in another security-related field
- 4+ years experience with systems level programming languages such as C, C++, or Rust
Penetration Testing IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 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 $188,000 - $304,200 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, read more about requesting accommodations.