Principal Software Engineer, Security AI

Microsoft

Quick summary

Work type
On-site
Location
Salary
$142,800–$274,800 / yr
Posted
5 days ago
Closes
Dec 19, 2026

Market check

Salary context

Competitive pay

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $201k
This role $209k
$127k most similar roles pay here $291k

This role pays more than 58% of similar roles. Most pay $167,075–$235,750 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $209k versus about $201k 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 694 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $119,800–$234,700 across 636 roles with salary data.

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At a glance

TL;DR · Principal Software Engineer, Security AI

As a Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft Cloud + AI’s Cloud Security team, you will lead the development of advanced AI-driven security systems that enhance detection, investigation, response, and risk reduction across Microsoft’s expansive cloud environment. Your day-to-day responsibilities include designing and building scalable software services using large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, knowledge graphs, and multi-modal signal processing to support engineering and security teams in making informed decisions. You will also create robust evaluation frameworks and collaborate with various internal teams to ensure the systems are secure by design and operationally excellent. The ideal candidate has extensive experience building AI and ML systems in large-scale cloud environments, expertise in responsible AI practices, and a strong background in distributed systems and cloud security technologies such as Azure services and Kubernetes.

What you'll do

  • Design and build AI-powered software services for cloud security at scale.
  • Develop scalable systems using large language models and retrieval-augmented generation techniques.
  • Create evaluation frameworks to assess the quality and reliability of AI systems in production.
  • Incorporate responsible AI principles into the design and deployment of security solutions.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate AI advances into practical, secure platform capabilities.
  • Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership through code reviews and architecture discussions.

What we're looking for

  • 5+ years of hands-on experience building AI or ML systems in large-scale cloud environments.
  • Expertise in designing reliable and scalable software systems with strong fundamentals in APIs, service architecture, testing, observability, and secure development practices.
  • Experience with vector databases, embeddings, semantic search, knowledge graphs, and multi-agent systems in production.
  • Proficiency in evaluating LLMs for safety, responsible AI principles, and model monitoring in cloud security contexts.
  • Strong background in cloud security operations, threat detection, incident response, and identity/access management.

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