Principal Applied AI Security Researcher
 Microsoft | |
 United States, Texas, Irving | |
| 7000 State Highway 161 (Show on map) | |
 Aug 10, 2025 | |
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OverviewSecurity 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 Threat Protection Research is dedicated to protecting customers from an ever-changing threat landscape by combining deep security expertise with cutting-edge AI innovation. Our mission is to empower organizations to stay ahead of adversaries through intelligent, proactive, and scalable security solutions. We are looking for a Principal Applied AI Security Researcher to join the Microsoft Defender Experts Research Team and help shape the future of managed security services. In this role, you'll collaborate with researchers, engineers, and service analysts to transform advanced AI techniques into real-world detections, investigations, and protections for customers worldwide. If you're passionate about applying AI to solve complex security challenges and thrive in a collaborative, mission-driven environment, we'd love to hear from you. 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.
ResponsibilitiesApply advanced AI/ML techniques-including generative AI and graph-based methods-to detect, track, and anticipate attacker behaviors across Microsoft Defender telemetry and diverse customer environments.Lead hypothesis-driven threat hunts by designing AI-assisted hunting playbooks that correlate identity, endpoint, email, cloud, and SaaS signals to uncover novel attack patterns and campaigns.Develop and evolve adversary behavior models and security knowledge graphs to prioritize risk, improve detection quality, and guide automated response strategies.Design and execute experiments that transform managed security operations, define measurable success criteria, and scale proven approaches into production workflows.Collaborate with cross-functional teams-including security researchers, product engineers, and Defender Experts-to translate research into actionable detections, automation, and investigation tools that enhance customer outcomes.Operationalize AI models at scale by building robust data pipelines, implementing labeling strategies, and ensuring model monitoring for fairness, drift, and performance in live environments.Champion Responsible AI principles by ensuring privacy, security, and compliance throughout the AI lifecycle, from data collection to deployment.Communicate research impact effectively through clear documentation, prototypes, and presentations, while mentoring peers and contributing to inclusive best practices in AI for security.Stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape by tracking attacker tradecraft, validating new AI techniques, and converting insights into proactive detections and mitigations that reduce customer risk. | |