Software Engineer II

Overview

The Defender Experts (DEX) Research team is at the forefront of Microsoft’s threat protection strategy, combining world-class hunting expertise with AI-driven analytics to protect customers from advanced cyberattacks. Our mission is to move protection left—disrupting threats early, before damage occurs—by transforming raw signals into intelligence that powers detection, disruption, and customer trust.

Responsibilities

Job Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable data platforms and pipelines to process large-scale datasets across distributed systems.
• Develop data processing and analytics solutions to derive insights from complex and high-volume data.
• Build and maintain batch and streaming pipelines using modern data technologies (e.g., Spark, Kafka).
• Design and implement graph-based data models, enabling efficient representation of relationships across entities.
• Develop graph traversal and relationship analysis logic to support advanced querying and insights (e.g., multi-hop analysis, entity linking).
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions.
• Ensure data quality, reliability, and performance in production systems.
• Drive end-to-end ownership from system design and implementation to deployment and monitoring.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, or related roles.
• Strong fundamentals in data structures, distributed systems, and data modeling (including graph modeling concepts).
• Hands-on experience with big data technologies (e.g., Spark, Kafka, distributed storage systems).
• Proficiency in Python and SQL.
• Experience building scalable batch and/or streaming pipelines.
• Familiarity with graph processing frameworks or graph databases (e.g., GraphFrames, Neo4j, TigerGraph, NetworkX).
• Understanding of graph traversal techniques (e.g., BFS/DFS, multi-hop queries, relationship aggregation).
• Experience working with large datasets and optimizing performance (joins, partitioning, skew handling).
• Experience with cloud platforms (Azure/AWS/GCP) is a plus.

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.