Microsoft
Principal Silicon Security Architect
$143K–$304K
Redmond, WA +2 · On-site · Principal · Full-time · Posted Nov 2, 2026
- Location
- Redmond, WA
Mountain View, CA
Hillsboro, OR - Experience
- Required: 3+ years with a doctorate, 6+ with a master’s, 8+ with a bachelor’s, or equivalent experience. Preferred: 15+ years; alternatively bachelor’s and 12+ years, master’s and 8+ years, or doctorate and 5+ years.
- Education
- Doctorate, master’s, or bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field; or equivalent experience.
- Visa sponsorship
- The role requires assessment of eligibility to access export-controlled information; candidates must provide proof of citizenship or qualifying U.S. residency or other protected status. Citizenship will be verified with a valid passport; lawful permanent residents, refugees, and asylees may use other applicable documents.
About the job
Leads end-to-end security architecture for Microsoft custom silicon and SoC platforms, from threat analysis and design through validation, production, and post-silicon security resolution.
What you'll do
- Define security frameworks, trust boundaries, objectives, and hardware, firmware, and software responsibilities; lead threat modeling and risk mitigation.
- Architect roots of trust, boot, attestation, isolation, confidential computing, cryptographic services, provisioning, lifecycle controls, and secure debug.
- Author testable security requirements and signoff criteria; guide security reviews, validation, and cross-functional technical alignment.
What they ask for
- Doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field and 3+ years technical engineering experience; or Master’s and 6+ years; or Bachelor’s and 8+ years; or equivalent experience.
- Ability to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements, including the Microsoft Cloud Background Check.
- Must provide citizenship or qualifying residency/protected-status documentation to assess eligibility for access to export-controlled information.
Nice to have
- 15+ years technical engineering experience, or the stated degree-and-experience alternatives in the posting.
- Experience architecting SoC security and familiarity with security technologies, validation, standards, external silicon vendors, PCIe, or AI-assisted engineering tools.
Pay
USD $142,800 - $274,800 per year (base salary); USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year (base salary)
Tools
SoCs, hardware roots of trust, secure boot, attestation, confidential computing, IOMMU/SMMU, PCI Express (PCIe), FIPS 140-3
AI focus
Preferred experience applying AI-assisted tools to architecture research, specification development, requirements analysis, or engineering productivity.
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative