Job Description

Overview

With more than 45,000 employees and partners worldwide, the Customer Experience and Success (CE&S) organization is on a mission to empower customers to accelerate business value through differentiated customer experiences that leverage Microsoft's products and services, ignited by our people and culture. We drive cross-company alignment and execution, ensuring that we consistently exceed customers' expectations in every interaction, whether in-product, digital, or human-centered. CE&S is responsible for all up services across the company, including consulting, customer success, and support across Microsoft's portfolio of solutions and products. Join CE&S and help us accelerate AI transformation for our customers and the world.

Microsoft's Detection and Response Team (DART) is seeking a skilled and experienced Cybersecurity Lead Investigator to join the team. DART is the first port of call for many customers during a security incident. This pivotal, customer-facing role calls for a technically deep and agile investigator who can lead complex, high-impact incident response across on-premises and cloud environments and turn incomplete evidence into clear, defensible response decisions.

You will lead the investigation, establish technical priorities and act as the primary technical point of contact for customers, including executive stakeholders. Working with threat hunters, reverse engineers, infrastructure engineers and incident coordinators, you will bring together investigative findings, and direct response recommendations, balancing investigation with rapid recovery and containment. Incident coordinators support staffing, scheduling and operational escalation; the Lead Investigator owns investigation direction and technical judgement within the agreed engagement scope.

As part of a globally distributed, mission-driven team, you will share research, mentor colleagues and help shape the future of Defender Experts Cybersecurity Incident Response. Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Employees are expected to demonstrate a growth mindset, innovation, collaboration, respect, integrity, accountability, and inclusion.

Responsibilities

As a Lead Investigator, you will orchestrate evidence-driven investigations and technical incident response, align specialist workstreams and communicate clear findings, priorities and recommendations to customers.

Technical Delivery

This role will work as part of a collaborative team assisting our top customers with: 

• Contextualizing and prioritizing findings to put together a comprehensive account and briefing of the events that transpired during a security incident.
• Pulling together multiple disparate events to build and communicate a cohesive timeline of activity.
• Collaborating with stakeholders at every level of the business, including legal, compliance, cybersecurity, engineering, and executive functions.
• Communicating key objectives and results with clarity and context.
• Managing all the complexities of large-scale cybersecurity investigations for global multi-national organizations, serving as the primary point of contact.

Research

Security threats are constantly evolving, and so must the Microsoft Incident Response team. To that end, this role will involve:

• Leading research and analysis of security threats, and sharing findings across the team.
• Identifying, conducting, and supporting others in conducting research into critical security areas, such as current attacks, adversary tracking, and academic literature.
• Analyzing complex issues using multiple data sources to develop insights and identify security problems and threats. Creating new solutions to mitigate security issues.
• Recommending prioritization and validation methods for technical indicators, developing tools to automate analyses.
• Leads efforts to clean, structure, and standardize data and data sources; leads data quality efforts to ensure timely and consistent access to data sources.

Thought Leadership

This role includes the ability to be at the forefront of Microsoft Security thought leadership by:

• Developing written content for publication on Microsoft blog platforms.
• Developing presentations for delivery at internal and external conferences.
• Use the unique experiences of Microsoft Incident Response to create unique storytelling moments.
• Lead from the front by ideating, mentoring, and supporting thought leadership efforts across the team.

Operational Excellence 

Must be maintained by:

• Completing operational tasks and readiness with timeliness and accuracy.
• Following Microsoft policies, compliance, and procedures (e.g., Enterprise Services Authorization Policy, Standards of Business Conduct, labor logging, expenses, travel guidelines).
• Leading by example and guiding team members on operational tasks, readiness, and compliance. 

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

· Doctorate in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Computer Security, or related field

o OR Master's 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

o OR Bachelor's 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

o OR equivalent experience.

Other Qualifications:

• Citizenship & Citizenship Verification: This position requires verification of U.S.
• citizenship due to citizenship-based legal restrictions. Specifically, this position supports
• United States federal, state, and/or local United States government agency customer and is
• subject to certain citizenship-based restrictions where required or permitted by applicable
• law. To meet this legal requirement, citizenship will be verified via a valid passport, or other
• approved documents, or verified US government Clearance.
• As stated in the job posting, this position requires verification of United States citizenship
• due to citizenship-based legal restrictions applicable to the role and as a result, you will
• need to provide a valid passport, or other approved documents, or verified US government
• clearance to verify your citizenship.
• 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.

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

o OR Master's 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

o OR Bachelor's 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

o OR equivalent experience.

• Demonstrated hands-on experience leading large-scale, high-pressure cybersecurity incident response across on-premises and cloud environments, including setting investigation direction and guiding evidence-driven customer decisions.
• Lead and manage high-profile incident response efforts for some of the world’s largest businesses.
• Coordinate and lead all key stakeholders as the primary point of contact for major incidents. (This could include technical teams, executives, consultants, and partners)
• Identify gaps early in the engagement process and request appropriate resources to fill those gaps.
• Balance the need for rapid recovery with data collection and evidence preservation.
• Direct activities to secure Enterprise-scale environments and assess potential data exfiltration or data collection.
• Management of large-scale incidents in a follow-the-sun format working with fellow team members from across the globe.
• Contextual application of MITRE Attack Framework and or OSI Model.
• Delivery of complex and technical discussions effectively to customer representatives of varying levels.
• Security Certifications in any of the following: OSCP, CISSP, SANS Certifications, SC Certifications from Microsoft. 
• Experience working with methods utilized for evidence collection, maintenance of chain of custody and associated documentation, evidence storage and analysis, and evidentiary reporting. 
• Eligibility to obtain or currently active government security clearance.
• Experience analysing nation-state or cybercrime activity and applying adversary knowledge to complex enterprise investigations.
• Demonstrated research, analytical automation, data-quality improvement and technical mentoring that strengthen investigation capability.
• Experience developing reviewed technical publications, presentations or other knowledge-sharing material while protecting sensitive information.

Security Research IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800 - $234,700 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 $160,200 - $261,000 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

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.