Principal Security Researcher

Microsoft

Confirmed live 2 days ago High trust

Remote

Quick summary

Work type: Remote
Location: Remote
Salary: $142,800–$274,800 / yr
Posted: 3 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live 2 days ago
Closes: Mar 7, 2027

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $179k

This role $209k

$114k most similar roles pay here $292k

This role pays more than 78% of similar roles. Most pay $150,000–$208,800 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $209k versus about $179k for comparable roles.

Based on 239 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 598 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $119,800–$234,700 across 586 roles with salary data.

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At a glance

TL;DR · Principal Security Researcher

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As a Principal Security Researcher in the FORGE Lab, you will join a team focused on autonomous security engineering by combining offensive security research with frontier AI capabilities. You will work on systems like MDASH, a multi-model agentic vulnerability discovery platform that autonomously identifies, validates, and proves exploitable vulnerabilities in software. Your daily responsibilities include conducting cutting-edge research to analyze vulnerabilities across products, cloud services, and open-source ecosystems while designing scalable automation and AI-driven tools to accelerate triage and remediation workflows. You will perform offensive security assessments to identify emerging threat patterns and publish technical findings. The role requires expertise in vulnerability research, exploit development, reverse engineering, and offensive security research. This position addresses the critical problem of identifying and remediating security risks more efficiently through automated systems and advanced AI-driven security workflows.

Skills

Vulnerability Research Offensive Security Exploit Development Reverse Engineering Anomaly Detection Threat Analysis Software Development Lifecycle Security Research Automated Exploit Generation Cybersecurity Large-scale Computing

What you'll do

Conduct research to discover, validate, and analyze vulnerabilities across Microsoft products and open-source ecosystems.
Develop scalable automation and AI-driven systems to accelerate vulnerability discovery and triage workflows.
Build tools to automate the identification and proof of exploitable vulnerabilities in software.
Perform offensive security assessments to identify emerging threat patterns and novel attack techniques.
Drive vulnerability mitigation efforts to improve security posture and reduce customer risk.
Publish high-quality technical findings and influence open-source projects or large-scale systems.

What we're looking for

A Doctorate, Master's, or Bachelor's degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or a related field.
3+ years of experience for PhD holders, 4+ years for Master's holders, or 6+ years for Bachelor's holders in relevant technical fields.
Equivalent experience to the specified degree and year requirements is acceptable.
Ability to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check every two years.
Demonstrated experience in vulnerability research, discovery, exploit development, reverse engineering, or offensive security research (preferred).
Experience with publicly disclosed CVEs or security advisories (preferred).
Participation in recognized security competitions or programs like CTF, DARPA AIxCC, or Pwn2Own (preferred).

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