Principal Security Researcher - Red Team

Overview

Microsoft Security is seeking agent and systems red teamers to join a new red team spanning agent security, offensive security, cloud identity, attack automation and adversarial AI. You will conduct hands-on red teaming of agentic systems and AI-enabled security products; design realistic attack chains across models, tools, identities, permissions and isolation boundaries; and turn critical findings into durable improvements such as regression evaluations, automated attack suites, stronger controls and safer product designs.

We are looking for a Principal Security Researcher - Red Team to join the team!

These are individual-contributor roles for security researchers and engineers who can move between exploitation, systems analysis and AI-specific attack techniques. Success requires depth in offensive security or agent security, fluency across cloud and AI systems, and the judgment to produce reproducible evidence that engineering, product, security and independent review teams can act on.

Work location: Redmond, WA (preferred). Remote work within the United States will be considered for highly qualified candidates.

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

• Design and execute end-to-end attacks against agentic systems, AI-enabled security products, orchestration frameworks, tools, plugins, connectors, identities, permissions and isolation boundaries.
• Investigate indirect prompt injection, unsafe tool use, scope violations, privilege escalation, confused-deputy behavior, secret exposure, sandbox escape, cross-agent manipulation and tampering with human oversight.
• Build realistic attack chains using attacker-controlled telemetry, alerts, code, web content and other inputs that agents encounter in production workflows.
• Develop automated attack suites and high-fidelity test environments that continuously exercise model behavior, harness logic, tools, identity and representative product telemetry together.
• Create rigorous threat models, attack hypotheses and reproducible evidence; assess exploitability, severity and customer or governance impact.
• Partner with engineers, model researchers and product security teams to identify root causes and drive findings to verified remediation.
• Convert confirmed weaknesses into regression evaluations, adversarial scenarios, automated tests, stronger authorization boundaries and safer system designs.
• Communicate attack paths, findings and residual risk clearly to technical teams, leadership and independent reviewers.
• Track emerging agent attack techniques and real-world adversary behavior, then evolve MART methods, tooling and investments accordingly.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Doctorate in relevant field AND 3+ years related research experience
• OR Masters Degree in relevant field AND 4+ years related research experience
• OR Bachelors Degree in relevant field AND 6+ years related research experience
• OR equivalent 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 Requirements:

• Hands-on expertise in offensive security, agent security, cloud or identity security, application security, exploitation or a closely related discipline.
• Experience designing security investigations that produce reproducible technical evidence and actionable remediation.
• Programming and engineering ability sufficient to build attack tooling, test harnesses, exploit prototypes and automated security tests.
• Experience testing large language models, agentic systems, tool use, plugins, connectors, multi-agent orchestration or AI-enabled security products.
• Experience with indirect prompt injection, cloud identity, authorization, sandboxing, container security, web or application exploitation, or offensive-security operations.
• Knowledge of secure agent architecture, least-privilege design, isolation boundaries, human-in-the-loop controls and high-fidelity security evaluation.
• Demonstrated ability to explain complex attack chains, severity and residual risk to engineers, product teams and senior decision-makers.
• Experience converting security findings into production mitigations, automated regression tests, architectural changes or durable security controls.

Research Sciences 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.