Senior Security Researcher

Reposted Yesterday
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Redmond, WA, USA
In-Office
120K-261K Annually
Senior level
Software • Quantum Computing • Metaverse • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
The Role
Investigates cybersecurity attacks through telemetry analysis, threat hunting, and reverse engineering; develops detection and prevention strategies across the attack lifecycle. Designs and maintains client-side and cloud machine learning, automation, LLM, and agentic systems for Microsoft security products. Supports incident triage, postmortems, root-cause analysis, and cross-team partnerships. Requires advanced education or equivalent experience in computer science, security, mathematics, or related fields, plus experience in cybersecurity, coding, machine learning, and reverse engineering.
Summary Generated by Built In
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.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) is a product for preventative protection, post-breach detection, automated investigation, and response. Our team, the core machine learning and data science team, is responsible for building ML, LLM, and automation solutions that defend over a billion end users and enterprises from cybersecurity attacks through Microsoft Defender AntiVirus, Microsoft Defender Endpoint Detection and Response, and Network Protection products. We are a mix of machine learning engineers and security researchers who investigate attacks, develop big data pipelines, run experiments, and deploy our protection to production to protect customers at scale.
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.


Responsibilities
  • Investigate, analyze, and learn from ongoing cybersecurity attacks in order to develop durable detection and prevention solution/strategies across the kill-chain or product/OS enhancements.
  • Shares and leads within team.
  • You will primarily be running telemetry-based attack investigations and threat hunting mixed with light reverse-engineering.
  • Design, code, and maintain client-side and cloud machine learning and automation systems that powers cybersecurity protection in our products and services.
  • Experiment with and apply large language models and agentic systems to protect our customers and improve our internal systems.
  • Supports the management of incidents by applying technical knowledge to diagnose and triage issues with a commitment to maintaining the quality of products and services.
  • Takes notes during incidents and participates in postmortem and root-cause analysis processes.
  • Work with other internal and external teams to forge new and improve existing partnerships that help mature the product.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

  • Doctorate in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or related field OR Master's Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or related field AND 3+ years experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, threat analysis or modeling, cybersecurity, vulnerability research, and/or anomaly detection.
    • OR Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or related field AND 4+ years experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, threat analysis or modeling, cybersecurity, vulnerability research, and/or anomaly detection.
    • 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 background and Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Doctorate in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or related field AND 3+ years experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, threat analysis or modeling, cybersecurity, vulnerability research, and/or anomaly detection.
    • OR Master's Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or related field AND 6+ years experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, threat analysis or modeling, cybersecurity, vulnerability research, and/or anomaly detection.
    • OR Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or related field AND 8+ years experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, threat analysis or modeling, cybersecurity, vulnerability research, and/or anomaly detection.
    • OR equivalent experience.
  • 2+ years of experience with coding.
  • 1+ years of experience with language models or machine learning.
  • Experience in classical and deep learning machine learning methods.
  • Experience with reverse engineering.

Security Research 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.

Skills Required

  • Doctorate in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or a related field
  • Master's degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or a related field plus 3 or more years of experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, threat analysis or modeling, cybersecurity, vulnerability research, or anomaly detection
  • Bachelor's degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or a related field plus 4 or more years of experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, threat analysis or modeling, cybersecurity, vulnerability research, or anomaly detection
  • Equivalent relevant experience
  • Ability to meet Microsoft, customer, and government security screening requirements
  • Pass Microsoft background and Microsoft Cloud background checks upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter
  • Doctorate in a related field plus 3 or more years of relevant experience
  • Master's degree in a related field plus 6 or more years of relevant experience
  • Bachelor's degree in a related field plus 8 or more years of relevant experience
  • At least 2 years of coding experience
  • At least 1 year of experience with language models or machine learning
  • Experience with classical and deep learning methods
  • Experience with reverse engineering

Microsoft Compensation & Benefits Highlights

The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Microsoft and has not been reviewed or approved by Microsoft.

  • Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is presented as broadly competitive overall, with clear role/level/location variation and an emphasis on using posted ranges and band information for apples-to-apples comparisons.
  • Retirement Support — Retirement benefits are described as a standout, highlighted by a strong 401(k) match structure and immediate vesting, plus additional plan features for tax-advantaged saving.
  • Parental & Family Support — Family-oriented benefits are portrayed as a meaningful strength, with substantial paid parental leave and added supports like back-up care and adoption/surrogacy assistance.

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The Company
HQ: Redmond, WA
206,870 Employees
Year Founded: 1975

What We Do

At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our mission is grounded in both the world in which we live and the future we strive to create. Today, we live in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, and the transformation we are driving across our businesses is designed to enable Microsoft and our customers to thrive in this world.

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