Senior Software Engineer

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

3d•$119,800 - $261,000

About The Position

The Copilot Security Engineering team is central to Microsoft's goal of providing secure, trustworthy, and user-friendly AI experiences across its Copilot offerings. This team develops systems to detect, assess, and defend against evolving AI threats, such as prompt injection, memory poisoning, data exfiltration, adversarial inputs, and the misuse of agentic workflows. Their objective is to implement top-tier security protections, enabling customers to confidently adopt AI at scale. The team integrates security engineering, AI systems knowledge, and threat research to pinpoint new risks, create innovative defenses, and continuously evaluate the effectiveness of these measures in live production environments. They collaborate closely with product teams, Microsoft Research, and platform organizations to embed security throughout the Copilot ecosystem. Microsoft is seeking a Senior Software Engineer passionate about securing AI-powered systems and adept at tackling complex, large-scale security challenges. In this role, the engineer will spearhead the design and development of AI threat detection and defense systems safeguarding Copilot experiences across Microsoft. They will manage solutions from threat identification to production deployment, working alongside engineers, security researchers, product teams, and platform organizations. This is a hands-on technical leadership position for an engineer who thrives at the intersection of security, AI, and large-scale distributed systems. The role involves shaping how Microsoft detects, evaluates, and mitigates emerging AI attacks, while building the security capabilities that ensure Copilot experiences operate safely and responsibly for millions of users globally. Microsoft's overarching mission is to empower every individual and organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees, we foster a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to achieve our shared objectives. Daily, we uphold our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to cultivate an inclusive culture where everyone can excel both professionally and personally.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 4+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.
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.

Nice To Haves

Master'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 Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.
5+ years of experience designing, building, and operating production software systems.
Software engineering fundamentals and proficiency in one or more modern programming languages such as C#, C++, Go, Rust, Python, or TypeScript.
Experience designing distributed systems, cloud-native services, or platform infrastructure at scale.
Experience identifying, analyzing, or mitigating security risks in production environments.
Understanding of modern AI security challenges, including prompt injection, indirect prompt attacks, memory poisoning, data exfiltration, model misuse, and agentic system risks.
Ability to drive technical initiatives across multiple teams and influence engineering decisions without direct authority.
Problem-solving and communication skills, including the ability to explain technical tradeoffs to engineers, product teams, and leadership.
Ability to meet Microsoft, customer, and government security screening requirements.
Experience building security detection systems, reputation systems, anomaly detection platforms, threat intelligence systems, abuse prevention technologies, or Trust & Safety systems.
Experience with large language models, AI systems, machine learning infrastructure, or evaluation frameworks.
Experience performing threat modeling, security reviews, red teaming, adversarial testing, or incident response.
Familiarity with AI safety, AI security research, or emerging attack and defense techniques.
Contributions to security tooling, patents, publications, open-source projects, or recognized technical leadership in security-related domains.

Responsibilities

Lead the design and implementation of AI threat detection systems that identify and mitigate threats such as prompt injection, memory poisoning, data exfiltration, agentic workflow abuse, and emerging adversarial attacks.
Drive the development of security services, classifiers, evaluation frameworks, telemetry pipelines, and risk assessment systems used to measure and improve Copilot security posture.
Conduct threat modeling exercises and identify security gaps across AI workflows, tools, orchestration layers, and platform integrations.
Partner with product teams to translate security requirements into scalable engineering solutions and platform capabilities.
Investigate emerging attack techniques and develop durable defenses that can be adopted across multiple Copilot experiences.
Drive root cause analysis and technical remediation efforts following security incidents.
Influence architectural decisions and engineering investments that improve platform security, resilience, and trustworthiness.
Lead design reviews and mentor engineers through technical guidance, code reviews, and knowledge sharing.
Contribute to technical strategy and roadmap planning for key AI security investments.
Participate in on-call rotations and lead investigations during complex security events impacting production systems.