Principal Security Research Lead

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. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world.

Email, chat, and the web are an integral part of our everyday lives. They are essential for communication and productivity, while also providing the primary ways cybercriminals exploit victims and infiltrate organizations. Attackers abuse these communication methods to steal identities through phishing, hold critical assets for ransom, inflict financial harm, disrupt business operations through floods of unsolicited email, and install malicious software. Do you want to join a team dedicated to protecting hundreds of millions of people from these threats? At Microsoft Security, our mission is to make the world a safer place for all. The Messaging and Web Security Research team is a global, multidisciplinary organization of engineers, data scientists, security researchers, and program managers. With an unparalleled view of the threat landscape, we develop deep expertise in attacker techniques and use that knowledge to fuel innovations using the latest technologies. We protect customers using Outlook.com, Microsoft Defender for O365, Microsoft Edge, and much more. We are looking for a Principal Security Research Lead to guide, mentor, and coach a world class group of researchers in developing innovative detection solutions and threat intelligence context to protect against and describe the latest threats in the enterprise email landscape. Going after these challenges in such a fast paced, highly dynamic, and high-volume problem space will require full use of our unique data visibility and detection capabilities to provide immediate large-scale impact every day. Together, we are redefining email and web security using the latest technology, unparalleled data and intelligence systems, and a collaborative and inclusive team culture. Join us and make a difference in our mission to empower everyone to communicate with confidence and trust!

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:

We are looking for a Principal Security Research Lead for our enterprise email focused research team. In this role, you will lead, coach, mentor, and grow a team of world class security detection and threat intelligence experts, from diverse technical backgrounds, to deliver durable detection solutions and deep security research insights to our customers and internal teams, while working to inform our customers and internal teams of trends in the ever changing email threat landscape. This person should have a solid understanding of what it means to run an operational team supporting millions of customers, and the accountability that comes with it. This team will balance the demand of on-call responsibilities and constant adjustment to adversaries with product innovation, team career growth, and work life balance. A successful leader in this role balances these competing demands while fostering cross-team collaboration to build and deliver on the strategic detection innovations to thwart the latest adversary techniques.

Are you ready for this challenge?

• People Management,
• Model Microsoft values and actively drive team culture improvements,
• Connect business objectives with the right talent on the team. Help the team set clear goals and adapt when the business or environmental factors change course,
• Attract and retain good people,
• Know each individual's capabilities and aspirations and invest in their growth,
• Support response and communication initiatives related to changes in the email security product and threat landscape,
• Hold team members accountable for operational excellence and maintaining effective heuristic detections,
• Develop collaborative working relationships with Data Science, Engineering, and Program Management partners across multiple teams, and
• Partner to execute, evolve, and champion the strategic vision for how we develop detections to protect enterprise customers from email threats.

Other

• • Embody our Culture and Values

Qualifications:

Required/Minimum Qualifications:

• 7+ years experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, modeling, cybersecurity, threat intelligence, and/or anomaly detection
  • OR Master's Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science or related field.
• 1+ year(s) people management 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 Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Preferred Qualifications:

• 8+ years of professional experience in either malware analysis, detection development, security product development, offensive security, or tracking cyber threats with a demonstrated ability to leverage intelligence on attacker methodology, tools, and infrastructure to improve security posture
• 3+ years of people management experience, preferably in security analysis or threat intelligence focused role.
• 1+ years of coding experience (Regex, SQL, python, C#)
• Record of accomplishment of delivering results despite ambiguity, attention to detail, and the ability to collaborate across a large organization, influencing many functions and teams
• Experience authoring detection logic to support mitigation of active threats.
• Experience working in, or leading, a geographically distributed operational team
• Experience representing both operational and innovative work across the greater organization and/or the industry
• Experience translating complex business problems into prioritized, results-driven team objectives
• Able to work in an agile environment balancing committed work with emerging innovative solutions

Security Research M5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $137,600 - $267,000 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 $180,400 - $294,000 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/us-corporate-pay.html

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until August 22, 2024.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form .

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

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