Microsoft
Security Research Engineer - Project Perception
$120K–$304K
United States · On-site · Full-time · Posted Oct 2, 2026
- Experience
- Minimum: 3+ years with a doctorate, 4+ years with a master's degree, or 6+ years with a bachelor's degree, in the stated relevant areas; OR equivalent experience. Preferred: 5+ years with a doctorate, 8+ years with a master's degree, or 12+ years with a bachelor's degree; OR equivalent experience. Also preferred: 5+ years in specified security work and 3+ years developing or debugging security tools or scenario automation.
- Education
- Doctorate, Master's Degree, or Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or related field; OR equivalent experience.
About the job
Build and evaluate safe, realistic cybersecurity attack scenarios and automated grading systems that provide training and evaluation signals for Microsoft security models and agents.
What you'll do
- Reproduce vulnerabilities and adversary techniques, then construct multi-step attack scenarios across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments.
- Develop automated graders and reward signals using system state and telemetry to verify security outcomes and distinguish agent, defense, and environment failures.
- Maintain safe, reusable scenario code and create attack variants and benign comparisons for evaluating detection and response.
What they ask for
- Doctorate in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or related field plus 3+ years of relevant experience; OR Master's degree in those fields plus 4+ years; OR Bachelor's degree in those fields plus 6+ years; OR equivalent experience.
- Relevant experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, threat analysis or modeling, cybersecurity, vulnerability research, and/or anomaly detection.
- Ability to meet required Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements, including the Microsoft Cloud Background Check.
- Pass the Microsoft background and Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.
Nice to have
- Doctorate plus 5+ years, Master's plus 8+ years, or Bachelor's plus 12+ years of relevant experience; OR equivalent experience.
- Experience in vulnerability research, authorized security testing, security tooling, attack-chain analysis, cloud IAM, automated graders, or adversary emulation.
Pay
USD $119,800 - $234,700 per year (base salary); USD $160,200 - $261,000 per year (base salary); USD $142,800 - $274,800 per year (base salary); USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year (base salary)
Tools
Python, C#, Go, C/C++, TypeScript, Azure, AWS, GCP
AI focus
Create scenarios and verified reward signals for reinforcement learning of Microsoft’s MAI family of models and evaluation of security Perception agents and their software harnesses.
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative