Principal Security Research Manager - Red Team

Microsoft • Redmond, WA

16h • $165,600 - $331,200

About The Position

Microsoft Security is seeking a founding technical leader to build and guide an AI red team focused on adversarial machine learning, agent security, offensive security, automation, and privacy. The role leads hands-on red teaming of advanced AI models, agentic systems, and AI-enabled security products; establishes how attacks are designed, executed, and reproduced; and drives critical findings toward durable improvements. It combines technical AI and security judgment with people leadership and close partnership with researchers, engineers, product teams, and independent reviewers to reduce product risk and strengthen security assessments. The successful candidate will develop specialist talent, make sound severity decisions, and translate adversarial evidence into action.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Employees work with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate toward shared goals. The company emphasizes respect, integrity, accountability, and an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive.

The typical U.S. base pay range is USD $165,600–$296,400 per year. A separate range applies in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City metropolitan area: USD $220,800–$331,200 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. The position will be open for at least five days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until filled.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or a related field and 8+ years of related experience, or a master’s degree in one of those fields and 6+ years, or a doctorate in one of those fields and 5+ years, or equivalent experience.
• 3+ years of people management experience.
• Must be able to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements, including passing the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.

Nice To Haves

• Experience leading red-team programs and making evidence-based risk decisions across complex technical stakeholders.
• Hands-on expertise in adversarial machine learning or offensive security, with technical fluency across both AI systems and security operations.
• Experience testing large language models, agentic systems, tool use, indirect prompt injection, or AI-enabled security products.
• Experience hiring, coaching, and developing applied scientists, security researchers, or similarly specialized technical talent.
• Ability to communicate technical findings, severity, and residual risk clearly to engineering teams and senior decision-makers.
• Experience building a new technical function, hiring multidisciplinary talent, and establishing effective partnerships with independent security or governance teams.

Responsibilities

• Build and develop a team of specialists in adversarial machine learning, agent security, offensive security, attack automation, and privacy.
• Set attack strategy and severity standards for identifying critical weaknesses in advanced AI models, agentic systems, and AI-enabled products.
• Lead hands-on red-team operations across models, training and evaluation systems, agent frameworks, tools, identities, and permissions to discover exploitable behavior before release.
• Design and operationalize high-fidelity attack campaigns, continuous adversarial testing, and automated suites that reproduce realistic threats at scale.
• Drive critical findings to verified remediation with research, engineering, and product security teams; convert recurring weaknesses into regression evaluations, adversarial environments, and stronger controls.
• Produce clear, reproducible evidence to support rapid severity decisions, focused engineering action, and efficient independent security review.
• Track emerging AI attack techniques and real-world threat behavior, and evolve the team’s methods, tooling, and technical investments.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal