Principal Security Operations Engineer

Microsoft; City of Westminster; On-site; GBP 94,000 - 162,000; Full time

Job summary

Microsoft is seeking a Principal Security Engineer to lead the design, deployment, and continuous improvement of security capabilities across network, identity, infrastructure, cloud, and AI environments. You will build and operate detections, automation, and investigation workflows to strengthen security posture while enabling engineering velocity.

You will work with engineering teams to implement scalable security controls, monitor telemetry, and advance protection across AI platforms and

Qualifications

• Degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience in security engineering, infrastructure engineering, cloud engineering, software engineering, security operations, or related technical disciplines.
• Experience building, deploying, or operating security controls, monitoring systems, detection capabilities, automation solutions, or security services.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, deploy, and operate security capabilities across network, identity, infrastructure, cloud, and AI environments.
• Implement and continuously improve monitoring, telemetry, detection, and response capabilities.
• Develop detections, analytics, automation, and investigation workflows that identify identity compromise, unauthorized access, privilege escalation, lateral movement, dubious egress activity, data exfiltration, policy violations, and anomalous workload behavior.
• Build security services, automation, tooling, APIs, data pipelines, and operational capabilities that reduce manual effort, improve security operations, and enable engineering teams to securely operate critical services.
• Secure cloud, sovereign, and AI environments by implementing security controls, validating protections, conducting threat modeling, performing security reviews, and identifying opportunities to reduce risk through engineering improvements.
• Investigate complex security events and emerging threats using telemetry, identity signals, access patterns, infrastructure activity, and operational data. Convert findings into new detections, controls, automation, and engineering solutions.
• Apply AI, machine learning, and agentic technologies to improve security monitoring, investigations, threat hunting, response, and operational efficiency. Develop monitoring and protection capabilities for AI infrastructure, model training environments, inference services, and autonomous systems.

Skills

Security engineering

Cloud security

Monitoring

Automation

Threat hunting

AI security

Security analytics

Education

Computer Science or related field

Job description

Do you enjoy building security capabilities that protect some of the world's most critical cloud, infrastructure, and AI environments? Are you passionate about combining engineering, automation, monitoring, and security to solve complex problems at scale? Our team secures cloud, sovereign, and AI environments by designing, implementing, and operating security capabilities across infrastructure, network, identity, and AI platforms. We work directly with engineering teams to build security controls, develop monitoring and detection capabilities, improve operational visibility, and protect critical services from evolving threats. As a Principal Security Engineer, you will lead the engineering, deployment, and continuous improvement of security capabilities across network, identity, infrastructure, and AI environments. You will build and operate security controls, monitoring systems, detections, automation, and engineering solutions that improve security posture while enabling engineering velocity. This opportunity will allow you to work on large-scale cloud and AI systems, influence security engineering across multiple organizations, and help shape the future of infrastructure security, security monitoring, automation, and AI 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.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, deploy, and operate security capabilities across network, identity, infrastructure, cloud, and AI environments. Develop scalable solutions that improve security posture, operational visibility, and platform resilience.
• Implement and continuously improve monitoring, telemetry, detection, and response capabilities. Engineer solutions that collect, enrich, correlate, and analyze security signals from network, identity, infrastructure, application, endpoint, and AI systems.
• Develop detections, analytics, automation, and investigation workflows that identify identity compromise, unauthorized access, privilege escalation, lateral movement, dubious egress activity, data exfiltration, policy violations, and anomalous workload behavior.
• Build security services, automation, tooling, APIs, data pipelines, and operational capabilities that reduce manual effort, improve security operations, and enable engineering teams to securely operate critical services.
• Secure cloud, sovereign, and AI environments by implementing security controls, validating protections, conducting threat modeling, performing security reviews, and identifying opportunities to reduce risk through engineering improvements.
• Investigate complex security events and emerging threats using telemetry, identity signals, access patterns, infrastructure activity, and operational data. Convert findings into new detections, controls, automation, and engineering solutions.
• Apply AI, machine learning, and agentic technologies to improve security monitoring, investigations, threat hunting, response, and operational efficiency. Develop monitoring and protection capabilities for AI infrastructure, model training environments, inference services, and autonomous systems.

Degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Experience in security engineering, infrastructure engineering, cloud engineering, software engineering, security operations, or related technical disciplines.

Experience building, deploying, or operating security controls, monitoring systems, detection capabilities, automation solutions, or security services.

Experience working with security telemetry, threat detection, incident investigation, security analytics, automation, scripting, software development, or large-scale distributed systems.

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 Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter., Experience securing cloud infrastructure, sovereign environments, AI platforms, or high-assurance computing environments.
• Experience developing network security monitoring, identity security monitoring, detection engineering, threat hunting, or security analytics capabilities.
• Experience building operational tooling, data pipelines, automation platforms, APIs, or security-focused software solutions.
• Experience leveraging AI, machine learning, or advanced analytics to improve security operations, investigations, monitoring, or response capabilities.

• Security Operations Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across United Kingdom is £ 93,500.00 - £ 161,800.00 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.