Senior AI Security Researchers

Security is one of the most critical priorities for our customers in a world of growing digital threats regulatory scrutiny and estate complexity. Microsoft Security aspires to make the world safer by empowering every user customer and developer with a security cloud that delivers end-to-end simplified protection. The Microsoft Security organization advances this mission by helping secure digital technology platforms devices and clouds across customers heterogeneous environments while also protecting Microsofts internal estate. Our culture is grounded in a growth mindset inspiring excellence and enabling teams and leaders to bring their full potential each day.

The Microsoft Security Research (MSecR) conducts security research at the intersection of offense defense and intelligence. AI is now everywhere: organizations and people across every industry are adopting large language models copilots and autonomous agents and these systems bring a brand-new attack surface that can be manipulated misused and exploited in ways traditional software Microsoft Security we protect AI from these attacks. We are looking for a Senior Security Researcher and a Principal Security Researcher who combines a real security background with a deep hands-on understanding of how modern AI works and how it breaks. You will help execute and conduct AI attacks through simulations using what you find to make AI safer and to inform our security products so they protect customers better. This role is for someone who wants to shape how AI attacks are simulated and defended at scale. You will set methodology build tooling influence product direction and drive innovation in attacking and defending AI systems (Security for AI). Microsofts 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.

As a Senior AI Security Researcher you will:

• Lead the design and execution of simulations aimed at making AI safer conducting realistic AI attacks whose findings inform our security products and help them protect customers more effectively.
• Develop and execute hands-on attacks against AI systems including:
  • 1) Direct prompt injection and jailbreaks that bypass system prompts safety instructions and alignment.
  • 2) Indirect (cross-domain) prompt injection (XPIA) where malicious instructions are hidden in untrusted content the model consumes: documents web pages emails tickets code and RAG sources.
  • 3) Multi-turn crescendo and social-engineering style attacks that steer a model toward unsafe behavior over a conversation.
  • 4) Multimodal injection through images audio and files that carry hidden instructions.
  • 5) Guardrail content filter and safety-system bypass including encoding obfuscation and adversarial phrasing.
  • 6) Sensitive data exfiltration and leakage including system prompt and grounding-data disclosure and cross-tenant or cross-session leakage.
  • 7) Agentic and tool-use abuse: excessive agency confused-deputy attacks unsafe autonomous actions and manipulation of tools plugins and connected systems. 8) Data and model attacks: training-data and RAG poisoning model extraction model inversion membership inference and adversarial examples / evasion.
• Build scalable AI red teaming tooling and automation (custom attack harnesses and evaluation frameworks) to generate attack variations run large evaluations and continuously test AI systems as they change.
• Partner with product engineering Responsible AI and detection teams to translate findings into mitigations: better system prompts input and output filters grounding controls agent guardrails and detections.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of AI defenses (detections safety classifiers filters and monitoring) and provide strategic recommendations to close gaps.
• Conduct deep research into emerging AI attacker techniques and map them to frameworks such as MITRE ATLAS and the OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications.
• Deliver executive-level briefings technical reports and prioritized actionable recommendations.
• Act as a technical leader: shape AI simulation methodology mentor team members and drive long-term innovation in Security for AI.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Doctorate in Statistics Mathematics Computer Science Computer Security or related field OR Masters Degree in Statistics Mathematics Computer Science Computer Security or related field AND 3 years experience in software development lifecycle large-scale computing threat analysis or modeling cybersecurity vulnerability research and/or anomaly detection.
• OR Bachelors Degree in Statistics Mathematics Computer Science Computer Security or related field AND 4 years experience in software development lifecycle large-scale computing threat analysis or modeling cybersecurity vulnerability research and/or anomaly detection.
• 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:

• Doctorate in Statistics Mathematics Computer Science Computer Security or related field AND 3 years experience in software development lifecycle large-scale computing threat analysis or modeling cybersecurity vulnerability research and/or anomaly detection.
• OR Masters Degree in Statistics Mathematics Computer Science Computer Security or related field AND 6 years experience in software development lifecycle large-scale computing threat analysis or modeling cybersecurity vulnerability research and/or anomaly detection.
• OR Bachelors Degree in Statistics Mathematics Computer Science Computer Security or related field AND 8 years experience in software development lifecycle large-scale computing threat analysis or modeling cybersecurity vulnerability research and/or anomaly detection.
• OR equivalent experience.
• 6 years of experience in security research and/or AI/ML security.
• A security background: experience finding and exploiting real vulnerabilities (for example penetration testing red teaming vulnerability research or application security) with an adversarial mindset.
• Solid practical understanding of how modern AI works: LLMs prompting retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) fine-tuning and agentic / tool-using systems.
• Hands-on experience and familiarity with agentic AI systems red teaming harnesses and AI tooling: building or working with agents tool-using LLMs orchestration and evaluation frameworks LLM APIs and attack harnesses. -
• Demonstrated hands-on experience attacking AI systems: prompt injection (direct and indirect) jailbreaks guardrail bypass data exfiltration or agent abuse in research or professional settings.
• Python skills for building attack automation evaluation harnesses and research tooling. - Familiarity with AI security and safety frameworks such as MITRE ATLAS OWASP Top 10 for LLMs and Responsible AI principles.
• Ability to translate offensive findings into practical defenses and to communicate clearly with both engineers and executives.
• Contributions to AI security research publications CTFs or open-source.

Security Research IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119800 - $234700 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 $160200 - $261000 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:

Security Research IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142800 - $274800 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 $188000 - $304200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
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.

Required Experience:

IC