below marketmost similar roles pay hereabove market
This role pays more than
69%
of similar roles. Most pay
$155,000–$216,262
— the blue band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$209k
versus about
$186k
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
711 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$119,800–$234,700
across 668 roles with salary data.
The Principal Security Engineer joins the Red Agents team to lead the development of secure, reliable, and safe agentic red teaming capabilities at enterprise scale. This role involves setting the technical direction and execution strategy for multi-agent systems that combine Generative AI, reasoning, memory, and planning with deep security domain expertise. You will build autonomous, AI-powered offensive security agents that emulate real-world adversaries while operating within strict safety, authorization, and scope guardrails. Key responsibilities include owning the architecture for the Red Agents portfolio, driving engineering excellence through automation and telemetry-driven development, and managing operational reliability. Required skills include expertise in offensive security, red teaming, and penetration testing, alongside experience with LLM orchestration, retrieval, tool use, and frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK.
What does a Security Engineer earn?
Median $193000 from 106 postings across 42 companies.
Own the architecture and long-term technical strategy for the Red Agents portfolio.
Set the engineering roadmap to align with product goals and prioritize new technologies.
Lead architectural decisions balancing scalability, security, reliability, and delivery velocity.
Drive engineering excellence through automation, tooling, testing, and standardization.
Manage operational excellence including SLOs, incident response, and capacity planning.
Champion experimentation and telemetry-driven development for rapid iteration.
Turn adversary tradecraft into customer-ready agent capabilities with safety guardrails.
What we're looking for
Master's Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or related field and 4+ years of experience in security or a related field.
Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or related field and 6+ years of experience in security or a related field.
Equivalent experience to the degree and years of experience requirements.
Ability to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check.
Experience building Generative AI or agentic systems, including LLM orchestration, retrieval, tool use, evaluation, and safety guardrails (preferred).
Background in offensive security, red teaming, penetration testing, or adversary emulation, including familiarity with frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK (preferred).
Understanding of identity and authorization concepts like least privilege, RBAC, and multi-tenant isolation for autonomous or AI-driven systems (preferred).
Proven ability to lead through ambiguity, align across teams, and communicate technical tradeoffs and risks to leadership (preferred).
Azure
AWS
GCP
Python
C#
C++
Go
Rust
PowerShell
.NET
Entra ID
Active Directory
Windows
Linux
Cloud Security
Threat Modeling
Penetration Testing
Kernel Security
Networking Protocols
C
C++
Windows
Azure
Penetration Testing
Vulnerability Discovery
Security Design Review
Code Review
Automation
OS Security
Computer Science
Agentic Systems
Python
Go
Rust
C
C++
Agentic AI
MCP
A2A
Application Security
Network Security
API Security
System Design
Backend Services
Cybersecurity
Prompt Injection
Tool Poisoning
Python
C
C++
C#
Java
JavaScript
LLMs
Autonomous Agents
Generative AI
Red Teaming
Penetration Testing
MITRE ATT&CK
Offensive Security
Cybersecurity
Cloud Security
Secure Development Practices