This role pays more than
57%
of similar roles. Most pay
$177,250–$234,710
— the shaded band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$209k
versus about
$206k
for comparable roles.
Based on 240 similar postings.
Employer
About Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is a global technology leader producing software, hardware, and cloud services including Windows, Office 365, Azure cloud platform, Xbox gaming, and Surface devices. Industry: Software & Cloud Computing
Microsoft currently has
628 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$119,800–$234,700
across 597 roles with salary data.
As a Principal Security Architect within the Microsoft Red Team Engineering team, you will serve as the "blue team to the Red Team" by designing infrastructure that makes offensive operations observable and distinguishable from real attacks. You will define technical strategies for telemetry, monitoring, detection, and deconfliction while building scalable data pipelines to collect and correlate signals across complex cloud, identity, endpoint, network, and application environments. The role involves managing an authoritative inventory of operational assets and ensuring high standards for reliability and secure development. To succeed, you must possess deep security expertise and proficiency in programming languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python. You will solve complex problems at the intersection of offense and defense to ensure that authorized red team activities are accurately identified amidst genuine adversary activity.
Define and drive technical strategy for Red Team visibility, telemetry, detection, deconfliction, and operational security.
Identify systemic visibility gaps using live operations and threat intelligence to prioritize engineering investments.
Architect and build scalable data pipelines to collect, normalize, and correlate Red Team telemetry for defenders.
Develop monitoring and alerting capabilities to distinguish authorized Red Team activity from genuine adversary attacks.
Build durable deconfliction systems that combine operational context with infrastructure signals and behavioral telemetry.
Maintain an automated and auditable inventory of Red Team assets, including infrastructure, tooling, and identities.
Establish engineering standards for testing, reliability, observability, and secure development across Red Team systems.
Provide technical leadership through architecture design, code reviews, debugging, and mentoring of cross-functional teams.
What we're looking for
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field and 6+ years of technical engineering experience with coding in languages like C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python.
Ability to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check.
Master's Degree in Computer Science or related field and 8+ years of technical engineering experience (preferred).
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field and 12+ years of technical engineering experience (preferred).
Experience in cybersecurity areas such as security telemetry, detection engineering, monitoring, incident response, threat analytics, cloud/identity/endpoint security, or offensive security infrastructure (preferred).
Experience designing distributed services, data pipelines, automation, or large-scale security platforms (preferred).
Demonstrated ability to set technical direction in ambiguous spaces and translate complex security challenges into durable engineering solutions (preferred).
Proven ability to influence architecture and execution across multiple teams while communicating effectively with engineers and senior leaders (preferred).