Role at a glance
- Job function
-
Software Engineering & IT Cybersecurity
- Salary
- $160.2K – $261K/yr
- Location
- Redmond, Washington, United States
- Work arrangement
- On-site
- Employment
- Full-time
- Experience
- Senior Level
- Education
- Minimum Qualifications: Doctorate in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or related field OR Master's Degree...
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Role Summary
The Senior Security Researcher investigates ongoing cyberattacks and develops detection, prevention, and product or OS security enhancements. The role also builds client-side and cloud ML and automation systems, applies language models and agentic systems to security, and contributes to incident analysis and product partnerships.
What You'll Do
- Investigate ongoing cyberattacks and use telemetry-based attack investigations and threat hunting, with light reverse-engineering, to...
- Design, code, and maintain client-side and cloud machine-learning and automation systems for cybersecurity protection.
- Experiment with and apply large language models and agentic systems to protect customers and improve internal systems.
- Diagnose and triage incidents, take incident notes, and participate in postmortems and root-cause analysis.
- Work with internal and external teams to develop and improve partnerships that mature the product.
Generated from the employer's posting. Verify important details before applying.
View full postingQualifications
Required: a doctorate in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or a related field; or a master's degree in those fields plus 3+ years of relevant experience; or a bachelor's degree in those fields plus 4+ years of relevant experience; or equivalent experience.
Preferred
- Doctorate in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or related field AND 3+ years experience in software...
- 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.
Original job description
Content provided by the employer
Original job description
Content provided by the employer
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.
About the company
Microsoft
Large Enterprise
Microsoft is a global technology leader that empowers individuals and organizations to achieve more through innovative software, services, and devices. Founded in 1975, the company is best known for its flagship products like the Windows operating system and Microsoft Office suite. In addition to personal computing, Microsoft is a leader in cloud computing with its Azure platform, providing a range of solutions for businesses to enhance productivity and efficiency. With a strong commitment to sustainability and accessibility, Microsoft continues to drive technological advancements that shape the future of work and learning.