Principal Security Specialists-GCR

Job description

**Overview** The Principal Security Specialist is a senior security sales leader responsible for accelerating customers’ security and AI transformation while driving sustainable business growth. This role engages executive and security decision-makers to shape their security strategy, identify transformation opportunities, and position Microsoft Security as a strategic platform across identity, data security, threat protection, cloud security, SIEM, and AI-powered security operations. As a Principal Security Specialist, you will: - Lead strategic security transformation: Engage C-level, CISO, and senior technology leaders to understand business and security priorities and translate them into a comprehensive security transformation strategy. - Drive Security and AI growth: Identify and develop strategic opportunities across Microsoft Security solutions, including Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Sentinel, Security Copilot, and the broader Microsoft 365 security portfolio, connecting security with customers’ AI transformation priorities. - Shape complex opportunities: Lead large, strategic security sales motions from early-stage strategy and opportunity development through solution positioning, competitive differentiation, business case development, and deal closure. - Build executive trusted relationships: Establish credibility with customer executives by bringing industry insight, security expertise, competitive perspective, and a strong understanding of customers’ business priorities. - Orchestrate One Microsoft: Bring together account teams, solution specialists, technical experts, Customer Success, engineering, and partners to deliver integrated security strategies and customer outcomes. - Scale through partners and ecosystem: Work closely with security partners, MSSPs, and services organizations to strengthen customer solutions, accelerate deployment and adoption, and create scalable growth opportunities. - Lead through influence: Act as a security thought leader within the organization, sharing best practices, coaching sellers, shaping go-to-market strategy, and helping the broader team improve security selling capabilities. ### What Success Looks Like Success in this role means creating measurable customer and business impact by expanding strategic security relationships, accelerating adoption of Microsoft Security and AI capabilities, winning competitive opportunities, developing new growth motions, and helping customers build a secure foundation for their AI transformation. **Responsibilities** - Drive Security Growth Strategy: Lead the development and execution of the Security growth strategy, translating market opportunity, customer priorities, and competitive insights into focused go-to-market plays that accelerate revenue, consumption, and long-term customer value. - Lead Strategic Customer Engagements: Engage executive and senior customer stakeholders to shape security transformation strategies, position Microsoft Security as a strategic platform, and accelerate complex opportunities across identity, data security, threat protection, SIEM/XDR, and cloud security. - Accelerate AI + Security Transformation: Help customers securely adopt AI and agentic AI by connecting security, identity, data governance, threat protection, and AI security into a cohesive transformation strategy. - Drive Security Upsell and Expansion: Identify and lead strategic expansion opportunities across Microsoft 365 E5 Security, Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Sentinel, Security Copilot, and adjacent security solutions, turning customer security priorities into measurable business growth. - Orchestrate Complex Deals: Lead cross-functional pursuit teams across sales, technical specialists, customer success, partners, engineering, and leadership to remove blockers, strengthen competitive positioning, and accelerate strategic opportunities from pipeline through closure and adoption. - Build Executive-Level Security Narratives: Translate complex cybersecurity and AI challenges into clear business outcomes, helping CISOs, CIOs, and other executives understand how Microsoft Security can reduce risk while enabling cloud and AI transformation. - Scale Through the Partner Ecosystem: Strengthen joint execution with security partners, MSSPs/MDR providers, and other ecosystem players to extend customer coverage, develop repeatable solution plays, and scale security transformation opportunities. - Lead Competitive Strategy: Bring strong market and competitive insight into major opportunities, helping teams differentiate Microsoft Security against key cybersecurity competitors and build compelling platform-level value propositions. - Create and Accelerate Pipeline: Partner with account teams and specialists to identify whitespace, prioritize high-potential customers, develop new opportunities, and maintain strong execution discipline across the Security pipeline. - Drive Customer Success and Adoption: Maintain focus beyond the initial sale by connecting customer business outcomes with deployment, adoption, usage, and expansion, helping customers realize sustained value from their Microsoft Security investments. - Scale Best Practices Across the Organization: Capture successful customer engagements, competitive wins, sales plays, and transformation stories, then turn them into repeatable approaches that improve execution across the broader Security organization. - Provide Thought Leadership: Act as a trusted Security advisor internally and externally, bringing together cybersecurity, AI, cloud, data, and industry perspectives to influence customer strategy and Microsoft go-to-market priorities. - Develop Security Talent and Culture: Coach and mentor specialists, share field expertise, strengthen strategic and executive selling capabilities, and foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, customer obsession, and continuous learning. - Operate as a One-Microsoft Leader: Connect Security with broader Microsoft priorities across AI, Azure, Modern Work, Business Applications, and partner organizations to create integrated transformation opportunities and maximize customer and business impact. **Qualifications** - Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, or related field AND 7+ years of technology-related sales or ac**c**ount management experience OR 9+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience. - Extensive experience in cybersecurity, enterprise technology, solution sales, or security consulting, with a strong track record of driving complex security transformation engagements with large enterprise customers. - Strong understanding of modern cybersecurity across identity and access, endpoint and threat protection, data security, cloud security, SIEM/XDR, Zero Trust, and security operations, with the ability to connect technical capabilities to customer business outcomes. - Proven ability to develop and execute strategic account and security growth plans, identify new opportunities, build pipeline, and accelerate complex opportunities from early-stage engagement through closure, adoption, and expansion. - Demonstrated experience engaging with CISOs, CIOs, CTOs, and other senior business and technology leaders, with the ability to influence strategy and build trusted executive relationships. - Strong understanding of the evolving AI and cybersecurity landscape, including how identity, data protection, threat protection, governance, and security operations enable organizations to adopt AI and agentic AI securely. - Ability to lead complex, cross-functional sales and transformation engagements, orchestrating account teams, technical specialists, customer success teams, partners, engineering, and leadership around a common customer strategy. - Strong business acumen with the ability to translate cybersecurity challenges into risk, transformation, productivity, and business-value conversations, rather than focusing only on individual security products. - Demonstrated ability to operate effectively in a highly competitive security market, develop differentiated value propositions, and shape strategies for complex competitive opportunities. - Strong communication, presentation, and storytelling skills, with the ability to simplify complex security and AI topics and communicate effectively with both technical and executive audiences. - Proven ability to operate with a growth mindset, navigate ambiguity, challenge traditional approaches, and continuously adapt strategy based on customer, market, technology, and competitive changes. ### Preferred Qualifications - Experience with enterprise security platforms and solutions spanning XDR, SIEM, identity, data security, cloud security, security operations, and AI-powered security. - Experience developing or executing security go-to-market strategies, including customer segmentation, solution plays, pipeline creation, upsell/cross-sell motions, and partner-led growth. - Strong knowledge of enterprise cloud and AI transformation and the role cybersecurity plays in enabling secure adoption at scale. - Experience working with MSSPs, MDR providers, system integrators, or other security ecosystem partners to extend customer coverage and scale execution. - Strong analytical and strategic thinking skills, with the ability to use customer, pipeline, competitive, and market insights to identify growth opportunities and prioritize resources. - Demonstrated ability to influence across organizational boundaries without relying on direct authority and to bring diverse stakeholders together around shared business outcomes. - Experience coaching, mentoring, and developing other security or sales professionals and contributing to broader organizational capability building. - Ability to create reusable best practices, customer stories, competitive insights, and sales approaches that scale impact beyond individual accounts or opportunities. ### Leadership Expectations As a Principal Security Specialist, the successful candidate is expected to operate beyond individual opportunity ownership. The role requires the ability to shape security strategy, influence executive customers, lead complex transformations, orchestrate across teams and partners, develop others, and create repeatable approaches that scale business impact across the organization. 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.**](https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html)