{"id":1260049,"url":"https://alion.io/job/microsoft-principal-security-researcher","title":"Principal Security Researcher","company":{"id":18,"name":"Microsoft","domain":"microsoft.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/microsoft","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Eightfold","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":22,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-09-30T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"Security","role_family":"Security","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Cheltenham, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":93500,"max":161800,"currency":"GBP","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":214336},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"Crowdstrike","optional":false},{"name":"Kibana","optional":false},{"name":"Microsoft Defender","optional":false},{"name":"Microsoft Entra ID","optional":false},{"name":"Microsoft Sentinel","optional":false},{"name":"SIEM","optional":false},{"name":"Splunk","optional":false},{"name":"X-Ways Forensics","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-07-20T17:55:31Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-25","last_verified_at":"2026-09-30T18:59:31Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":72,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":72},"description":"OverviewThe Cloud & AI 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. Microsoft is one of the largest enterprise service companies in the world.\nDo you have a passion for helping Microsoft’s clients defend themselves against targeted exploitation? Are you interested in being intimately involved in the latest, cutting-edge developments in the security industry and having a direct impact on the security of all Microsoft customers? Do you want to be on the front lines of helping our customers go toe-to-toe against advanced adversaries? Are you interested in a fast-paced job full of new opportunities? If that resonates, consider joining us as a Security Researcher on the Global Hunting, Oversight, and Strategic Triage (GHOST) team! We are looking for an experienced Principal Security Researcher with a Digital Forensics and Incident Response background to join our team to perform threat hunts, assist with investigations, develop threat intelligence, and to cultivate investigation best practices into Microsoft tooling and products. Researchers will support a global team to identify and catalog new attacker TTPs, victims, and deliver customer notifications to protect worldwide enterprise customers and empower customers to protect themselves via constantly improving Microsoft products.\nMicrosoft’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. In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day. 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. In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.\nResponsibilities\nThis role is part of a collaborative team, assisting our customers with:\nLeading technical workstreams during investigations and guiding others to conduct deep analysis of attacker activity in on-premises and cloud environments.\n\nIdentifying potential threats, allowing for proactive defense before an actual incident\n\nPresenting technical findings and recommendations to improve customers’ cybersecurity posture and performing threat intelligence knowledge transfer to prepare customers to defend against today’s threat landscape\n\nDefining the requirements for and assisting in the development of production threat hunting tools, automations, and new capabilities.\n\nDriving investigation strategy, develop new hunting methodologies, and influence security products and practices across multiple teams\n\nMentoring others, helping the team to upskill in terms of both hard and soft skills.\n\nQualifications\nRequired qualifications:\nExtensive and demonstrated professional experience in Threat Hunting, Incident Response (DFIR), Threat Intelligence, or Security Research.\n\nExperience investigating sophisticated cyber threats, including APT or nation-state activity.\n\nExtensive experience working with forensically collected data (and tooling), security telemetry, logs and SIEM platforms.\n\nExpertise in KQL or equivalent query languages (Splunk, Humio, Kibana, etc.).\n\nExperience with EDR and security monitoring technologies such as Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Sentinel, CrowdStrike, or similar platforms.\n\nExperience managing or conducting security review of Microsoft Azure tenants, Microsoft 365 and Entra ID.\n\nProven ability to analyze security data to investigate attacker activity, and derive identify indicators of compromise (IOCs), indicators of activity (IOAs), and TTPs.\n\nExperience and familiarity with the collection of Digital Forensic data, as well as case management and forensic analysis tooling such as X-Ways Forensics.\n\nExcellent written and verbal communication skills in English and ability to work in a global team environment\n\nAbility to obtain and maintain a UK Security Clearance.\n\nPreferred qualifications:\nIndustry certifications in cybersecurity, DFIR, incident response, or threat hunting (e.g., CISSP, GIAC).\n\nExperience across multiple cybersecurity disciplines, including threat hunting, incident response, digital forensics, and threat intelligence.\n\nExperience leading technical workstreams in Incident Response scenarios.\n\nExtensive knowledge of Microsoft security technologies, including Defender and Sentinel.\n\nExtensive knowledge of Microsoft Entra ID.\n\nExperience analyzing large-scale security telemetry and hunting across enterprise environments.\n\nUnderstanding of scripting or the ability to read and interpret code and automation workflows.\n\nSecurity Research IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across United Kingdom is £ 93,500.00 - £ 161,800.00 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.\nFind additional benefits and pay information here:\nhttps://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/corporate-pay/united-kingdom-corporate-pay.html\nSecurity Research IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across United Kingdom is £ 93,500.00 - £ 161,800.00 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. \nFind additional benefits and pay information here:\nhttps://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/corporate-pay/united-kingdom-corporate-pay.html\nThis position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.\nMicrosoft 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.","description_format":"text","description_chars":7224,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"English","level":"All levels","optional":false}]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Console Games","Gaming Consoles","Incident Response","Developer Tools"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-25T20:02:29Z"}],"liveness":{"score":11,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.384,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":71,"expected_fill_days":19,"reasons":["conf:6","stale_co","velocity","win:tail","crowd:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-09-30T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":214336,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/microsoft-principal-security-researcher","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/microsoft-principal-security-researcher.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-01T03:11:26Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":2683,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":2317,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-02T00:00:00Z"}}}