Principal Program Manager

Job ID: 200058346Posted: 2026-09-28Location: United States, Washington, RedmondSalary: USD $142,800 - $274,800 per yearEmployment type: Full-TimeWork site: 3 days / week in-officeRole type: Individual ContributorTravel: Less than 25%Profession: Program ManagementDiscipline: Technical Program ManagementCompany: MicrosoftOverviewThe Cloud Delivery team helps Microsoft Defender deliver reliable, secure services for customers around the world, including in sovereign and regulated cloud environments. We bring together product engineering, cloud infrastructure, and service operations to improve readiness, resolve cross-team delivery challenges, and turn operational learnings into lasting improvements for the services customers rely on.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.ResponsibilitiesWe are seeking a Principal Technical Program Manager to build, coordinate, and drive security fundamentals across the Microsoft Defender organization. You will create a clear, consistent view of risk and progress using risk registers, security metrics, and engineering plans. Working across teams rather than within a single engineering group, you will establish the operating rhythm that helps teams resolve obstacles and gives leaders the information they need to see and understand organizational security posture.• Build and govern a scalable program across Defender's security fundamentals efforts. Establish review cadences, reporting expectations, escalation paths, and clear ownership with engineering and security leaders.• Use existing risk registers and key performance indicators to explain where risks remain, how they are changing, and whether remediation is making progress. Identify gaps or conflicting information and work with the relevant owners to resolve them.• Partner with deputy CISO leadership, engineering managers, and technical leads to understand plans, dependencies, milestones, and obstacles. Help teams make commitments visible and maintain a regular rhythm for reviewing progress.• Coordinate across teams when risks or remediation efforts span services or ownership boundaries. Bring unresolved priority, dependency, and resource decisions to the appropriate leaders with clear options and tradeoffs.• Produce and maintain concise, periodic summaries of security posture, progress, and emerging themes across the Defender organization.• Establish planning and review mechanisms that give senior leaders a clear view of portfolio health, strategic tradeoffs, unresolved decisions, and required actions.• Support division-wide security efforts, including initiatives such as Microsoft's Secure Future Initiative, by connecting their goals to Defender's existing governance and engineering execution.QualificationsRequired Qualifications: •Bachelor's Degree AND 6+ years experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development OR equivalent experience.Preferred Qualifications:Bachelor's Degree AND 14+ years of experience in engineering, product/technical program management, OR equivalent experience. • 5+ years of experience leading complex, cross-functional technical programs •Working knowledge of security fundamentals, including vulnerabilities, exposure, remediation, and risk assessments sufficient to discuss security prioritization with engineering teams. • Technical understanding of network infrastructure and distributed services sufficient to discuss architecture, dependencies, and security tradeoffs with engineers. • Written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical risk, uncertainty, and progress to executives.• Experience coordinating security posture or vulnerability remediation programs across a large product or infrastructure organization.• Familiarity with large-scale security initiatives and the challenges of applying shared goals across multiple engineering teams.• Experience finding gaps in security reporting, reconciling inconsistent data, and turning program-level trends into decisions.• Background in cloud infrastructure, network security, identity, or endpoint protection.Technical Program Management IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $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: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.