Overview:

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.

We are looking for a Principal  Applied Scientist to join our team. The **Social Engineering Threat Research (SET‑R)**team is part of Microsoft Security Research, focused on understanding and mitigating human‑targeted threats such as phishing, impersonation, scams, and other forms of social engineering that exploit trust, urgency, and manipulation. The team studies attacker behavior at scale, analyzes emerging threat patterns, and translates those insights into production‑grade protections across Microsoft Defender and related security platforms.

SET‑R brings together researchers, applied scientists, detection strategists, and customer‑intelligence specialists to bridge the gap between foundational research and real‑world impact. Our work spans threat discovery, data analysis, machine learning and AI‑driven modeling. This role in particular will focus heavely on grading and agentic workflows, effectiveness measurement and AI innovations focusing on enhanced customer experiences.

This role will be highly collaborative working accross multiple products and specialized sub-teams that cover the full lifecycle of social‑engineering defense, including large‑scale analytics, detection engineering, grading and AI agents, and customer‑facing intelligence. This role will enable SET‑R research teams to rapidly adapt to an evolving threat landscape while maintaining close alignment with engineering, product, and operations partners across Microsoft Security.

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.

In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

Responsibilities:

As a Principal  Applied Scientist focused on protecting Microsoft customers from social engineering threat vectors, you will be responsible for:

• Engage with stakeholders across our team and beyond to identify the most critical challenges worth solving
• Developing and supporting production AI models, heuristics, and production agentic workflows to detect social engineering attacks
• Technical leadership across emergent technologies
• Embody our culture and values

Qualifications:

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 6+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research).
• OR Master's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 4+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research).
• OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 3+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research).
• OR equivalent experience.

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:

• Master's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical, or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 9+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research).OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical, or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 6+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research).
• OR equivalent experience.
• 5+ years experience developing and deploying live production systems, as part of a product team.
• 3+ years experience with processing large volumes of data in distributed environment (Map Reduce, Spark, MPI, CUDA, etc)
• 1+ years experience with at least 1 statically typed object-oriented language (C, Java, C++, Fortran etc.)
• Familiarity with software development tools such as GIT, automated build systems, and project tracking systems.
• Proficiency in measuring the health and effectiveness of systems.
• Demonstrated ability and motivation to self-teach and navigate through ambiguity.
• Passion for cybersecurity is a plus, although previous experience or knowledge is not required.

#MSFTSecurity

Applied Sciences 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:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.