Senior/Principal Software Engineer

Overview 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.

We are currently looking for a Senior and Principal Software Engineers who can help accomplish the goals and initiative of the Microsoft Security organization. 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.

By applying for this role you will be considered for Senior and Principal level openings. Responsibilities Lead complex, high-impact technical problem solving Take ownership of the most challenging scenarios, including agent design (red/green/blue), evaluation frameworks, and novel attack/defense strategies grounded in real customer environments.

Partner deeply with customers to drive meaningful outcomes Engage directly with customers to understand their current state, define requirements, and guide decisions on production deployment versus simulation or synthetic environments. Translate customer signal into scalable product capability Turn one-off solutions into reusable, production-grade capabilities that scale across customers—evolving early “gravel road” ideas into durable, broadly applicable engineering systems.

Set and elevate engineering standards across the team Drive excellence in code quality, evaluation rigor, and data governance, helping establish best practices that improve reliability, security, and maintainability at scale. Build, deploy, and continuously improve intelligent systems Develop and tune agents, create robust evaluation pipelines, and use data-driven analysis to iterate and improve product performance and outcomes.

Lead through influence and mentorship Coach and guide engineers through scoping, design decisions, and trade-offs, elevating the technical bar while fostering a collaborative and inclusive team culture. Represent the customer voice in engineering decisions Act as a bridge between customer reality and product development, ensuring insights are brought into engineering rhythms and drive measurable improvements.

Operate with end-to-end ownership and accountability Contribute code, deliver iterative improvements, and partner with stakeholders through regular checkpoints—owning progress from initial concept through production and continuous refinement.

Drive experimentation, evaluation, and learning loops Design and run evaluations, capture insights, and systematically feed learnings back into the product to strengthen quality and impact over time. Embody our culture and values Qualifications Required/minimum qualifications Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 4+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.

Additional or preferred qualifications Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR Bachelor'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 8+ years of software engineering experience with deep security, systems, or applied-AI expertise.

Cross-team technical leadership and hands-on coding excellence. Software Engineering IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800 - $234,700 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 $160,200 - $261,000 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.