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Principal Security Researcher - Microsoft Defender (Identity Threat Detection and Response)

Microsoft· Security Research
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Hybrid (Israel), Hybrid (Beer-Sheva), Hybrid (Tel Aviv/Herzliya), Hybrid (Haifa), Hybrid (Nazareth)Full-timePosted 4w ago

About the role

Principal security researcher to set technical direction for identity protection, drive multi-quarter research agendas, mentor others, and shape strategy across Microsoft for Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR). Emphasis on leveraging Generative AI to scale investigation, detection authoring, and customer protection at Microsoft scale.

Responsibilities

  • Set the technical direction for a major area of our identity protection research charter, owning the multi-quarter strategy from threat landscape framing to shipped detection and measurable customer protection impact.
  • Drive multiple concurrent end-to-end research initiatives, breaking ambiguous problems into tractable workstreams and unblocking the team on the hardest technical questions.
  • Lead deep investigation and research of data across identity and adjacent sources to surface novel threats, attacker tradecraft, and detection opportunities others miss.
  • Stay ahead of the evolving attacker landscape and design robust, sophisticated detection logics across the entire kill-chain — raising the bar on quality, coverage, and resilience to attacker evasion.
  • Influence across organizational boundaries — partner with product management, engineering, data science, and peer research teams to shape product strategy, define new identity protection capabilities, and align roadmaps on a data-driven foundation.
  • Mentor and grow other researchers (IC3–IC4), elevating the technical bar of the team through code/design review, research coaching, and apprenticeship on complex investigations.
  • Shape how the team and discipline leverage Generative AI — define patterns, evaluate tools, and build durable AI-assisted workflows that scale research throughput across data triage, hypothesis generation, code and KQL authoring, and detection synthesis.
  • Represent Microsoft Security externally through high-quality research publications, conference talks, blog posts, and engagement with the broader security research community.

Qualifications

  • You have at least 10 years of experience in security research.
  • Proficiency in developing with either C++, C#, Java or Python.
  • You have experience leading a feature from design through to production delivery (design, coding, testing, deployment).
  • Strong cross-group collaboration and interpersonal skills.
  • 8+ years of experience in cybersecurity research, with a strong background in the modern attacker kill chain and MITRE ATT&CK, and deep expertise in identity-based threats and identity protection, ideally in the context of enterprise security or ITDR.

Skills

Required:Security researchProgrammingLeadership & collaboration
Last updated Sep 24, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

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