Principal Engineer - Cloud Infrastructure & Automation

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 to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world.

Microsoft's Threat Protection Group is seeking a Principal Engineer - Cloud Infrastructure & Automation to lead the design, development, and automation of secure, scalable cloud infrastructure for our Purple Team and other scenario runs. This team plays a critical role in bridging offensive and defensive security, simulating real-world threats, and enhancing Microsoft's detection and response capabilities across our cloud ecosystem. As a Principal Engineer, you will drive the architecture and automation of cloud-based environments used for adversary emulation, detection engineering, and threat research. You will collaborate with red and blue teams, security researchers, and product engineers to build resilient systems that support advanced threat scenarios and accelerate our security response.

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:

• Architect and implement scalable, secure, and automated cloud infrastructure (Azure-first, multi-cloud aware) to support purple team operations.
• Develop infrastructure-as-code (IaC) and CI/CD pipelines to deploy and manage complex environments for threat simulation and detection validation.
• Collaborate with red and blue teams to design environments that mimic real-world enterprise scenarios for adversary emulation and detection testing.
• Automate telemetry collection, log aggregation, and signal enrichment to support threat detection and hunting. Lead technical strategy for infrastructure automation, cloud security posture, and operational excellence.
• Mentor and guide other engineers and security analysts in cloud engineering best practices and secure automation.
• Stay current with emerging threats, cloud technologies, and security automation trends.

Qualifications:

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 6+ years of experience in software engineering, cloud infrastructure, or security engineering. Expertise in Azure (preferred), AWS, or Google Cloud Platform cloud platforms. Proficiency in Infrastructure-as-Code tools (e.g., Terraform, Bicep, ARM templates).
• Scripting and automation skills (e.g., PowerShell, Python, Bash).
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps).
• Understanding of cloud security principles, identity and access management, and network security.
• Familiarity with threat modeling, adversary simulation, and detection engineering.

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 background and Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working in or with red, blue, or purple teams.
• Knowledge of MITRE ATT&CK, threat intelligence, and detection frameworks.
• Experience with Kubernetes, container security, and serverless architectures.
• Strong communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $139,900 - $274,800 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 $188,000 - $304,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: ;br>
Microsoft will accept applications for the role until May 30th, 2025.

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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