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Job Details
Posted date: Mar 18, 2026
Category: Software Engineering
Location: Reston, VA
Estimated salary: $222,050
Range: $139,900 - $304,200
Employment type: Full-Time
Work location type: 3 days / week in-office
Role: Individual Contributor
Description
OverviewSecurity represents the most critical priorities for our customers in a world awash in digital threats, regulatory scrutiny, and estate complexity. Microsoft Sovereign Cloud Security is looking for highly motivated candidates that can thrive in a non-traditional, agile environment at the cutting-edge of the security market. Our group is responsible for providing organizations with the best security solution for their cloud environment, allowing for visibility, governance, and protection over their infrastructure, platforms, and application solutions. 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.
We are looking to hire a Principal Security Architect with deep technical judgment and platform‑level ownership to lead security architecture and policy strategy for highly regulated government and sovereign cloud environments. This role operates at a product and portfolio level, shaping how security strategy, regulatory policy, and modern security architectures (including Zero Trust) are translated into scalable, durable technical solutions across Microsoft. The ideal candidate is a trusted technical leader who can operate effectively in a deeply interconnected organization—driving alignment across engineering, security, compliance, legal, and business stakeholders—while maintaining a high security bar for sensitive sovereign workloads.
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. In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.
Responsibilities
Lead security architecture and policy strategy for government and sovereign cloud environments, ensuring alignment with regulatory, contractual, and national security requirements.Translate government security policy and compliance obligations into clear architectural patterns, guardrails, and technical requirements that can be consistently implemented across products and services.Collaborate on product‑level security design decisions, resolving tradeoffs between security, compliance, scale, performance, and engineering velocity.Drive cross‑organization alignment by working closely with Azure engineering teams, security partners, compliance and legal stakeholders, and external government entities.Identify systemic security risks and gaps across interconnected services and lead initiatives to remediate them at scale.Influence multi‑year security strategy and roadmaps, ensuring long‑term resilience and parity with modern commercial cloud security capabilities where appropriate.
Other:
Embody our company's Culture and Values
Qualifications
Required Qualifications:Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or PythonOR equivalent experience.
Other Requirements:
Security Clearance Requirements: Candidates must be able 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:
The successful candidate must have an active U.S. Government Top Secret Clearance with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) based on a Single Scope Background Investigation (SSBI) with Polygraph. Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required pre-offer and post-hire for this role. Failure to maintain or obtain the appropriate U.S. Government clearance and/or customer screening requirements may result in employment action up to and including termination. Clearance Verification: This position requires successful verification of the stated security clearance to meet federal government customer requirements. You will be asked to provide clearance verification information prior to an offer of employment.Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.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.
Preferred Qualifications:
Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or PythonOR Bachelor'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. Experience supporting sovereign, government, or national security cloud offerings.Familiarity with Microsoft security platforms and cloud services (e.g., Azure, Entra, Defender, Purview).Experience engaging directly with government customers, regulators, or auditors.Background in driving cross‑product or cross‑platform security initiatives at scale.
Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $139,900 - $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:
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.