Principal Software Engineer(s) + Senior Software Engineer(s)

Overview

Microsoft Security works to make the world safer with solutions that help customers protect their people, data, devices, and cloud environments.

Within the Agentic Security Organization, we are building AI-powered capabilities that help defenders detect, investigate, and respond to threats with greater speed and precision, while keeping people in control of critical decisions. Security teams face more alerts than people can investigate. Across Data Platform & Graph and Agent Runtime & Orchestration in Perception Platform, we build the data foundations and runtime that help AI agents triage alerts, conduct multi-step investigations, and take governed action to support defenders. Agents operate with secure identities and clear boundaries, coordinate and hand off work, and recover from failures. Customers can see what each agent did and why.

We are hiring Principal Software Engineer(s) + Senior Software Engineer(s) across the teams led by David Weston and Pankaj Naik. Depending on the team, you may build large-scale security data and graph infrastructure or the platform and runtime that enable security agents to coordinate work, carry out investigations, and take governed action. These services will be secure, reliable, observable, and effective at Microsoft scale.

As a Senior Software Engineer, you will own significant services or components from design through production, make sound engineering trade-offs, and collaborate across teams to improve customer outcomes. As a Principal Software Engineer, you will shape technical direction across larger systems, resolve complex architectural challenges, and align teams around durable solutions. At both stages, you will use production signals and customer feedback to improve the quality, reliability, and cost of what we build.

If you want to solve hard distributed-systems problems with a direct impact on how defenders work, we would like to hear from you. Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. We bring a growth mindset to our work and build a culture of respect, integrity, accountability, and inclusion where everyone can thrive.

Responsibilities

Senior Software Engineer(s)

• Lead the design, delivery, and production operation of significant data-platform, distributed data-service, or agent-runtime components, depending on the team.
• Build reliable batch or streaming ingestion and processing systems, or distributed services supporting security investigations, analytics, and graph-based workloads. Make sound trade-offs across data quality, performance, reliability, and cost.
• Use telemetry, tracing, quality measures, and customer feedback to improve scalability, security, recovery, and customer outcomes.
• Own live-site health and incident response for your components; strengthen testing, deployment practices, and service resilience.
• Partner across product and engineering teams to resolve dependencies, advocate for customer security and privacy, and mentor engineers through design and code reviews.

Principal Software Engineer(s)

• Set architectural direction for major data-platform, distributed data-service, or agent-runtime capabilities. Align teams on durable approaches to scale, reliability, security, and cost.
• Define technical approaches for large-scale data platforms, batch or streaming pipelines, and services supporting security investigations, analytics, or graph-based workloads, as relevant to the team.
• Lead cross-team decisions on data quality, observability, recovery, performance, and production operations. Prototype alternatives and resolve ambiguous, high-impact architectural challenges.
• Establish engineering patterns that improve the security, resilience, and operating efficiency of data-intensive services across the platform.
• Partner with product, applied science, and engineering leaders to turn customer needs into shared platform capabilities; mentor engineers and raise the bar for design, code quality, and live-site excellence.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, or related technical discipline 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.

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.

Additional or Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelors 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 Masters 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 equivalent experience.

• 6+ years of experience in Java, C++, C, or another object-oriented language, with a strong understanding of data structures, algorithms, and distributed systems.

• 6+ years of experience building, shipping, and operating production-grade software, online services, or fault-tolerant distributed systems; experience launching new products using modern development practices is a plus.

• 6+ years of experience designing secure, maintainable, well-tested, and performant solutions; using debugging, code reviews, test strategies, and deployment automation to improve quality. Familiarity with agile methods, test-driven development, or AI tools across the software development lifecycle is valued.

• 6+ years of experience translating customer needs into technical designs, evaluating architectural trade-offs, and working across teams to resolve dependencies.

• 6+ years of experience setting technical direction and aligning multiple teams on complex solutions is preferred.

• 6+ years of experience applying security standards and hardening services across layers, paired with curiosity, sound judgment, customer empathy, and a collaborative approach to difficult problems.

#MSFTSecurity #AgenticSecurity

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

Software Engineering 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.