Principal Applied Scientist

Job description

Do you want to help build innovative tools that empower AI Agents to achieve their full potential?

Are you passionate about pushing the boundaries of what AI can do?

Does the thought of being able to influence the product through predictive insights & recommendations excite you?

If so, we would like to hear from you!

The future of work is being redefined with AI agents.

Microsoft is leading this transformation with M365, Copilot Studio, and Azure AI Foundry.

As a  **Principal** **Applied Scientist**  in Microsoft’s Business and Industry Copilots group, your core mission will be to deliver exciting innovation in Microsoft Copilot.

We are looking for candidates who are creative, self-driven, curious, people-oriented and comfortable defining a path through ambiguity towards high-level goals.

The successful applicant(s) will collaborate closely with people across Microsoft’s product teams and Microsoft Research to see their ideas realized in products and services that are used worldwide, as well as to contribute back to the scientific community and beyond (e.g. via presentations, publications, media interviews, and similar).

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.

**Responsibilities**

Responsibilities

+ Defining, leading, and helping to conduct research projects that simultaneously advance the state-of-the-art and directly benefit Microsoft’s core productivity products.

 

+ Collaborating and coordinating with people in a range of roles, including researchers, engineers, product managers, designers, and other key product stakeholders.

Serving as a bridge between research and product.

  

+ Teaching, guiding, and tutoring colleagues without research backgrounds in state-of-the-art techniques and research best practices.

 

+ Many of the things you will try should lead to unexpected outcomes.

You must be comfortable learning from experience, developing new hypotheses, and iterating.

  

+ Sharing your research with others via a range of means, including publication, to enable others to build on your work and to contribute to the understanding of our products as cutting-edge and science driven.

 

+ Effectively communicating with product leaders (and often MSR researchers) throughout the planning andexecutionof applied research projects, which often involves learning and teaching complex concepts.

**Qualifications**

Required Qualifications

+ Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND extensive years of related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)

+ ORMaster's Degreein Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND proven years of experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)

+ OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND proven years of related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)

+ OR equivalent experience.

+ Extensive years of experience developing and deploying AI/ML products or systems at multiple points in the product cycle from ideation to shipping

+ Proven yearsofexperiencewith transformer-based models (e.g., GPT, Llama)

+ Ability to apply research, preferring the large-scale application ofnew ideasover theory and prototypes.

+ Demonstrated collaboration and communication skills, both within-team and cross-team, and experience working through problems in ambiguous environments adapting to new research challenges as technology develops.

Preferred Qualifications

+ Proficiencyin Python for data science workflows,leveraginglibraries such as NumPy, Pandas, scikit-learn, Matplotlib, andJupyterfor data analysis, experimentation, and rapid prototyping

+ Exposure to Deep Neural Network training and inference and experience in one or more deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, etc.).

+ Experience with Agent based architectures,frameworksand technologies (such as MCP, A2A protocol,Langchain, Azure AI Foundry)

+ Experienced in web application development frameworks, such as React

+ Experience delivering a Cloud SaaS product on Azure,AWSor GCP

+ A record of publication in top-tier scientific venues (ongoing or in the recent past) (e.g.,NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, KDD, WWW, CHI, PNAS, Nature)

Other Requirements

+ Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements arerequiredfor this role.

These requirements include but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: 

+ Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will berequiredto pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

#BICJOBS

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer.

Consistent with applicable law, 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 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) .

Required Skill Profession

Other General