Principal Group Software Engineering Manager

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. 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.

Security is critical at Microsoft, and the Defender for Office (MDO) team leads the charge in protecting customers against evolving threats. We focus on detecting and neutralizing malicious activity—malware, phishing, fraud, and spam—while empowering security administrators with self-service tools.

We’re seeking a Principal Group Software Engineering Manager to drive delivery and integration with Microsoft Security services and key M365 workloads (Outlook.com/Exchange, SharePoint, Teams). In this role, you’ll lead an engineering team to advance our protection platform, design and deploy new capabilities, and ensure we stay ahead of threat actors. You’ll balance technical and business priorities, align work to organizational OKRs, and thrive in a dynamic global security landscape. Determined customer focus, deep security curiosity, and collaboration with Product Management, Security Research, and Support teams are essential to deliver timely, high-impact solutions.

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.

This Hybrid Position is located at our Microsoft office in Redmond, Washington. Relocation support will be provided, and successful candidates will need to relocate or reside within 50 miles of the field location. 

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a high-performing engineering team, fostering a culture of growth mindset, diversity, and inclusion.
• Champion Microsoft’s Model, Coach, Care philosophy to develop future leaders.
• Drive a strong Quality, Security, and Live Site culture to meet and exceed customer expectations.
• Architect, design, and implement scalable, reliable, and cost-effective services with low latency and high throughput.
• Define requirements, OKRs, priorities, and delivery plans for engineering initiatives.
• Partner with Product Management, Research, and cross-functional teams to align on requirements and strategy.
• Optimize and refactor code for performance, maintainability, and ROI across services and components.
• Streamline service deployment and maintenance for maximum reliability with minimal manual intervention.
• Innovate and evolve protection capabilities to stay ahead of emerging threats.
• Promote Microsoft’s mission and values—respect, integrity, accountability—to create an inclusive, thriving culture.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or related technical discipline 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.

• 8+ years of experience designing, developing, or maintaining secure software systems, with applied knowledge of authentication, data protection, access control, and secure coding practices.
• 8+ years of experience in leading engineering teams or managing technical projects, collaborating across multiple teams and stakeholders to deliver complex solutions, drive innovation, and achieve measurable results in large-scale or mission-critical environments.
• 8+ years of experience in designing, building, and operating scalable, highly available cloud services or distributed systems on platforms such as Azure, AWS, or GCP, including production ownership, CI/CD integration, and applying distributed systems concepts (e.g., concurrency, conflict resolution, consensus algorithms) for resilience and maintainability.

• 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 Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Additional Or Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 15+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
• OR Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
• OR equivalent experience.
• 15+ years of experience designing, developing, or maintaining secure software systems, with applied knowledge of authentication, data protection, access control, and secure coding practices.
• 15+ years of experience in leading engineering teams or managing technical projects, collaborating across multiple teams and stakeholders to deliver complex solutions, drive innovation, and achieve measurable results in large-scale or mission-critical environments.
• 15+ years of experience in designing, building, and operating scalable, highly available cloud services or distributed systems on platforms such as Azure, AWS, or GCP, including production ownership, CI/CD integration, and applying distributed systems concepts (e.g., concurrency, conflict resolution, consensus algorithms) for resilience and maintainability.
• OR Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
• OR equivalent experience.

Software Engineering M6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $163,000 - $296,400 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 $220,800 - $331,200 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

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until October 24th 2025.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.  We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

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