Principal Cloud Network Engineering Manager

Microsoft Digital (MSD) builds and manages the critical products and services that Microsoft runs on. We boldly pursue big ideas that power transformational advances at Microsoft and for our customers, while helping Microsoft teams work smarter, faster, and more securely every day. Microsoft Digital employees have deep technical and business expertise, customer insights, and a clear point of view that comes from first-hand, large-scale experience with Microsoft and industry solutions. We are engineers, technology leaders and experts, digital transformation change agents, and customer advocates. We have exciting opportunities for you to innovate, influence, transform, inspire, and grow within our organization and we encourage you to apply to learn more! Do you want to lead the team building the future of AI-driven network defense for one of the world's largest enterprise environments? Network Defense Engineering is hiring a Principal Engineering Manager to lead AI-driven security operations and network defense engineering for Microsoft's enterprise network. This leader will manage a high-performing engineering team responsible for turning network telemetry, exposure data, threat signals, and operational workflows into scalable platforms, automations, detections, and agentic capabilities that reduce Microsoft security risk. This role is accountable for both people leadership and technical strategy. You will model, coach, and care for engineers and engineering leads while setting the direction for AI-assisted detection, security orchestration, vulnerability and exposure management, network device security posture, configuration compliance, incident response automation, and defense-in-depth controls across Microsoft's network and infrastructure environment. 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. #MSD #MSDJOBS   Responsibilities You will lead, develop, and retain a diverse engineering team responsible for AI-driven security operations and network defense engineering. Model, coach, and care for engineers and engineering leads through clear expectations, quality feedback, career development, inclusive hiring, succession planning, and accountability for measurable outcomes. You will translate CISO priorities, Microsoft security standards, customer-zero needs, and enterprise risk into a prioritized technical roadmap. Partner with stakeholders to determine requirements, identify dependencies, develop designs, and coordinate project and release plans across products and teams. You will drive the strategy and execution for AI-assisted threat detection, security analytics, automated investigation, response orchestration, and remediation. Build scalable engineering systems that use telemetry, Kusto/KQL, security signals, configuration and vulnerability data, and agentic workflows to improve detection, prioritization, response, and executive visibility. You will lead network defense programs spanning security research, vulnerability and exposure management, device security posture, segmentation, control-plane protections, ACL enforcement, AAA, credential hygiene, secure configuration, and compliance readiness. Hold teams accountable for security, reliability, privacy, quality, scale, and performance expectations. You will guide teams in producing secure, extensible, maintainable solutions, automation, test and quality processes, telemetry, runbooks, and operational readiness practices. Apply product and business judgment to prioritize investments, balance operational needs with long-term modernization, and improve performance, maintainability, and return on investment. You will provide