Principal Security Operations Engineering Manager

The 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.

Team Overview: The Azure Security Operations team is responsible for helping protect some of the worlds most critical cloud services and platforms. We bring together security engineering, incident response, data analytics, automation, and AI-driven innovation to identify emerging threats, drive rapid response, and continuously strengthen Azures security posture. Our team operates at hyperscale, partnering across engineering and security organizations to solve complex challenges, improve resilience, and ensure customers can trust the services they rely on every day. If you are passionate about cybersecurity, enjoy solving high-impact problems, and want to help shape the future of cloud defense, youll find an unparalleled opportunity to make a difference on our team.

We are looking for a Principal Security Operations Engineering Manager to join the team!

Role Overview: As the leader of our Incident Response function, you will play a critical role in defending Microsofts cloud environment against emerging threats and helping shape the future of cybersecurity operations. You will investigate complex security events, lead cross-functional response efforts, and develop innovative solutions that improve detection, response, and resilience. This is a rare opportunity to combine hands-on technical depth with strategic influence, working alongside some of the industrys leading security professionals to solve problems that matter at global scale. If you thrive in fast-paced environments, are energized by continuous learning, and want your work to have visible impact, wed love to hear from you.

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.

Responsibilities

People Management: 

• Deliver success through empowerment and accountability by modeling, coaching, and caring.
• Lead a team responsible for protecting Microsofts cloud ecosystem through world-class incident response, threat investigation, and security operations capabilities.
• Drive strategic investments that improve Microsofts ability to detect, respond to, and recover from sophisticated security threats at scale.
• Partner across engineering, product, and security organizations to solve complex security challenges and deliver durable, defense-in-depth solutions.
• Foster a culture of operational excellence through data-driven decision making, automation, AI innovation, and continuous improvement.
• Represent the organization with senior leadership, communicating security risk, operational health, and strategic priorities to executive stakeholders.
• Attract, develop, and retain exceptional security talent while building an inclusive, high-performing team that delivers measurable impact for Microsoft and its customers.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Doctorate in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or related field AND 3+ 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 Masters Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or related field AND 4+ 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 Bachelors 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 equivalent experience. 
• 1+ year(s) people management experience.

Other Requirements:

Candidates must be able 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:

• Doctorate in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or related field AND 5+ years experience in software development lifecycle, large scale computing, threat modeling, cyber security, or anomaly detection
  • OR Masters Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or related field AND 8+ years experience in software development lifecycle, large scale computing, threat modeling, cyber security, or anomaly detection
  • OR Bachelors Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or related field AND 12+ years experience in software development lifecycle, large scale computing, threat modeling, cyber security, or anomaly detection
    • OR equivalent experience.
• 2+ years people management and/or informal/indirect team leadership experience.
• 1+ years experience leading a security function (e.g., Security Operations Center [SOC], threat and vulnerability management [TVM]).
• 1+ years experience leading multi-disciplinary teams.
• CISSP CISA CISM SANS OSCP Security+

Security Operations Engineering M5 - 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.